Southeast Coast of North Korea, Yongsan City in Gangwon Province, is known for its unique geological activity that has given the peninsula’s ten-mile beach a particularly bright glow, earning it the reputation of “Bright Beach Ten Miles” across the Korean Peninsula.
On June 24, 2025, the completion ceremony of the Yongsan Geumma Coast Tourism Area was held, attended by Kim Jong Un himself.
A news broadcast on the same day by the Korean Central Television showed Kim Jong Un and his daughter arriving at the seaside of Yongsan Geumma Peninsula by yacht. Lee Sye-joo, who had not been publicly seen for a long time, along with her sister Kim Yo-jung, and key leaders from the party, government, and military of North Korea, were present at the ceremony. Russian Ambassador to North Korea and staff members also brought their children to the event.
On June 24, Kim Jong Un attended the completion ceremony of the Yongsan Geumma Coast Tourism Area. Photo/KCNA
One noteworthy detail is that on June 12, while attending the launching ceremony of the second new destroyer, “Jangjin,” in Wonju, Kim Jong Un rode in a Mercedes-Maybach extended vehicle. This time, instead of a Mercedes-Maybach extended luxury car, which he received earlier from President Putin, he disembarked from the yacht and switched to a Russian made extended luxury sedan before reaching the ceremony site.
With the lens of official North Korean media, one can observe that the well-known “Donghae Famous Site” of Bright Beach Ten Miles now boasts high-rise residential buildings, seaside hotels, villa clusters, as well as beach walkways, waterfront vacation homes, sandy beaches equipped with leisure facilities, swimming pools, shops, bars, performing arts centers, waterscape gardens, and children’s playgrounds, even including shared bicycle convenience facilities. The entire area was captured without any signs of scaffolding.
This contrasts sharply with the scene six years ago. In April 2019, when invited by China Newsweek to visit North Korea, international media became among the first to conduct field research at the Yongsan Geumma Coast Tourism Area.
Following the initial request of Kim Jong-un, the tourism area was supposed to be completed before the “Solar Festival” (April 15th) in 2019.
However, at that time, what Yusan saw were several high-rise complexes within the tourism area, with their main structural frameworks almost finished. Some cranes and scaffolding had not been dismantled, and exterior painting, window installation, and interior decoration work had not yet been carried out.
If we start from Kim Jong-un’s first public proposal to build the Yusan-Gangneung International Tourism Area in 2014, this coastal region, which is emphasized by KCNA as being only a “ten-mile stretch,” has undergone construction for 11 years and has been repeatedly postponed. It finally became the “monumental creation” spoken of by Kim Jong-un. The underlying reflection reflects not only the difficult journey of North Korean tourism and infrastructure construction but also the constantly changing external environment of Peninsular relations.
Originating from Gangneung, a decade of twists and turns
The story of Yusan’s Geumma Coast begins with Gangneung.
In June and October of 1998, Jeong Ju-yong, the Honorary Chairman of the South Korea Modern Group, visited North Korea twice with 500 cattle and negotiated with North Korea on joint development of Gangneung, which holds significant spiritual significance for the Korean people. Over the next ten years, approximately 1.93 million tourists visited Gangneung.
After Jeong Ju-yong’s death in 2003, both sides held memorial services for him in Gangneung. Although these events were often interrupted, they have become a symbol of civilian diplomacy between the two sides. Several senior members of Lee Myung-bak’s foreign policy team, such as former National Intelligence Service Director Park Ji-won and former Unification Ministry Deputy Chief Choi Hye-chang, were regular visitors to Gangneung.
However, in July 2008, a South Korean tourist was shot dead while visiting Gangneung during a trip. The newly elected Lee Myung-bak government, which was very tough on North Korea at the time, immediately suspended the Gangneung tourism project. In November, North Korea officially closed the scenic area.
After Kim Jong Un became the highest leader of North Korea, the country began to attempt opening up again. In 2014, the North Korean government announced that all eight administrative regions except for Chollima were open to foreign tourists. At the same time, Kim Jong Un publicly proposed the construction of the “Yonhap-Gangneung International Tourism Zone.” The currently completed Geumma Coastal Tourism Area is part of this plan.
According to the initial plan, Kim Jong Un hoped to connect the well-developed Gangneung with the newly planned Eastern Coast Scenic Area, creating a comprehensive tourism area spanning over 430 square kilometers across Yunsan, Gangneung, Fatun, Anbian, Tongchuan, and Gaocheng counties and cities. This area would feature both mountain and sea views; natural landscapes as well as a “leisure and sports center.”
In 2015, during an interview with the media, Wu Yingji, the Deputy Chairman of the Yunsan-Gangneung International Tourism Zone Development Advisory Committee, mentioned that North Korea aims to transform this region into a world-class tourist city, setting a model for urban development.
Ten years later, on the completion of the Geumma Coastal Tourism Area, China News Service published an interview with Li Zhengge, the Deputy Director General of the National Tourism Administration of North Korea. Li also mentioned that North Korea needs to make good use of two major natural tourism resources: mountain tourism resources and coastal tourism resources. This shows that since Kim Jong Un became the highest leader, the approach to developing tourism in North Korea has been consistent.
On June 24, Kim Jong Un, accompanied by his wife and daughter, attended the completion ceremony of the Yunsan Geumma Coastal Tourism Area. Photo/China News Service
Kim Chung-hee, the Director of the Tourism Promotion Bureau under the Korean National Tourism Administration, later told China Newsweek that at this meeting, Kim Jong Un proposed actively developing the tourism industry. “With this as an opportunity, the tourism industry in North Korea embarked on a new path of development.”
However, in 2017, following North Korea’s sixth nuclear test and welcoming “the most severe sanctions in history,” North Korea’s economy suffered a severe impact.
In 2018, during the brief “peace window” on the Korean Peninsula, construction of the Yunsang Geumma Coastal Tourist Area was included in North Korea’s economic development as a “key project” and heavily promoted by the media in North Korea. However, in early 2019, with the collapse of the Hanoi summit between North and South leaders, the progress of Yunsang construction slowed down once again.
In April 2019, before the originally scheduled completion date, Kim Jong Un visited Yunsang to inspect, delaying the completion date to October of that year. This delay stretched until June 2025.
Why was the construction of Yunsang so complex? Fundamentally, North Korea had never included plans for developing the tourism and sightseeing industry in its government work reports, and Kim Jong Un had never compared tourism to industries he frequently mentioned such as agriculture, light industry, coal industry, and machinery industry. Tourism has always been seen as a means to generate foreign exchange within the broader framework of “multifaceted development of the economy.” The construction of Yunsang originated from the “Yunsan-Gangneung concept,” adding a special significance to it as part of external engagement efforts. Against this backdrop, the project faced challenges due to changes in the external environment on the peninsula, which was not surprising.
It wasn’t until after 2019 that the construction approach for Yunsang shifted as tensions on the peninsula continued to escalate. Kim Jong Un no longer emphasized attracting international tourists but instead demanded “for our people to enjoy the Yunsang Geumma Coastal Tourist Area unparalleled from next year’s seaside season.”
On June 24, 2025, Kim Jong Un once again pointed out at the completion ceremony: “The tourism industry, as a driving force for the prosperity and development of the cultural sector, local revitalization, and the overall economic growth of the country, has a significant long-term significance.” The Korean Central News Agency reported that Kim Jong Un also proposed an important direction for “actively expanding and developing North Korean tourism,” with plans to present new initiatives at the 9th Party Congress on building multiple “large-scale tourist cultural areas of various types.”
Kim Jong Un “Directly Acted as a Designer, Construction Leader, and Construction Leader”
Since 2019, North Korea had designated the Ganghwa Coastal Tourism Area in Wonsan as a “key project” serving its own people rather than a “foreign exchange project,” incorporating it into the annual work priorities of the Labor Party’s 8th Congress and the cabinet. Against this backdrop, why did it take six years to declare completion of the Wonsan Tourism Area?
During the construction of the Wonsan Tourism Area, Kim Jong Un made several on-site inspections and repeatedly pointed out issues with the design and construction of the area, such as “the buildings are not coordinated, there is no significant difference in height, and the floors should vary in height. Additionally, adding 30 or 25-story hotels and service facilities would make the connections between buildings more harmonious and distinctive, thereby enhancing the overall street formation artistically.”
According to the Korean Central News Agency, during the construction process, Kim Jong Un “directed personally as a designer, construction leader, and construction leader,” from forming construction teams to supplying materials, “taking all measures to push the Ganghwa Coastal Tourism Area construction project to perfection at the highest level.”
A more critical issue lies in the infrastructure support outside the scenic area. During a visit to China in 2019, The China Newsweek discovered that in the road from Pyongyang to Wonsan, there was a public restroom available for visitors. The water tank and tap were dry, requiring the use of a small pool of water for flushing. This situation is not uncommon outside Pyongyang.
At the time, the Gangjin Mountain area, not far from Yunshan, had undergone more than a year of renovations for roads and service facilities. However, when traveling by car from Pyongyang to the Gangjin Mountain area, continuous cracks on the highway made the journey almost a rollercoaster ride towards Gangjin. The step-counting app on his phone showed that over five or six hours of driving, he “climbed 600 flights of stairs.”
Kim Jong Un was fully aware of these issues. While inspecting the hot spring area in Yangde County, Pingyang, he specifically instructed, “We must repair the hard surface roads to the best quality so that people coming to soak in the hot springs do not feel inconvenienced by the traffic.” During his inspection of the Gangjin Mountain tourist area, Kim Jong Un also pointed out that half-finished projects should not be presented as such, “constructing several dilapidated houses resembling construction site sheds to attract tourists is very wrong. These unattractive tourist facilities also cause damage to the natural landscape.”
According to reports from KCNA, before the completion ceremony on June 24, 2025, all supporting work for the opening of the Yunshan Gema Coast Tourist Area had been nearly completed by various departments in North Korea. On May 30, the Standing Committee of the Supreme People’s Assembly of North Korea passed the “Yunshan Gema Coast Tourist Specialty Law.” On June 11, the reconstruction project of the Yunshan Gema Railway Station serving tourists was completed.
Even so, North Korea did not open the scenic area for direct operation on June 24 but set the public operation date for July 1. Kim Jong Un also emphasized that the completion does not mark the end of the project, “the level of service and its capabilities are crucial factors determining the value and prospects of the tourism destination.” He also gave instructions on the management and operation of the service facilities.
It is noteworthy that the establishment of the Yuanshan Gema Coastal Tourism Zone coincided with a dramatic shift in the situation on the Korean Peninsula: the newly appointed South Korean President, Lee Jae-myung, proposed new policies to ease the tensions between North and South. Additionally, U.S. President Donald Trump appointed Alison Huk, who was involved in the 2018 and 2019 summits between North and South leaders, as the Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs, specifically overseeing efforts towards North Korea.
Although relations between North and South Korea, and North and the United States remain difficult to rapidly warm up, Lee Jae-myung has shown an intention to “control the pace” in his policy towards North Korea. However, it is worth noting that one of the specific measures proposed by his team to ease the relationship between North and South includes restarting the dialogue between separated families. Historically, such dialogues have been held at Mount Kumgang.
Against this backdrop, although North Korea emphasizes that Gema Coastal Tourism Zone was developed for “the people,” there have been some positive signals released by the North. For instance, during an introduction of the newly completed tourism area, KCNA wrote that Gema Coastal Tourism Zone “is located near a hotel and lodge capable of accommodating nearly 20,000 guests, allowing visitors from both domestic and international sources to choose according to their preferences.”
During an interview with the media, Li Zhengge, the Deputy Director General of the National Tourism Administration of North Korea, also mentioned “allowing our people to fully enjoy civilized life” and “expanding multifaceted exchanges and cooperation with other countries.” He stated that Gema Coastal Tourism Zone should be built as a place where “our people and people from all over the world like to visit.”
In a sense, on June 24th, Russian diplomats and their families became the first batch of international tourists welcomed after the completion of the Yuanshan Gema Coastal Tourism Zone. KCNA described that Mingshan is now filled with cherry blossoms, promising “a sea of people every year.” What’s more concerning is whether in 2026, during the Cherry Blossom season, this “famous scenic spot in the East Sea” will attract more international tourists.