According to the Asahi Shimbun:
The long-term effects of continued food shortages have apparently reached the city limits of North Korea’s capital.
According to news agency Radiopress, which monitors North Korea, the physical size of Pyongyang’s administrative district has been recently reduced by more than one-third.
It said Radio Pyongyang and other state-run domestic media have recently introduced the counties of Kangnam-gun, Junghwa-gun and Sangwon-gun as well as the Sungho district as being under the jurisdiction of neighboring Hwanghae-bukdo province. The counties and the district previously belonged to Pyongyang.
South Korean human rights groups see this as an attempt to trim the capital’s population to better manage continuous food shortages.
Pyongyang, now believed to have a population of between 2 million and 2.5 million, is used as a showcase for foreign visitors. The capital city is home to a number of high-ranking officials of the Korean Workers’ Party, and gets privileged treatment for food and other necessities compared with other areas.
A South Korean humanitarian support group on Monday quoted a Korean Workers’ Party official on its website as saying, “The decision was made in response to food shortages.”
A source close to North Korea said the reduction might be designed to lessen the city’s food and infrastructure needs.
Read the full story here:
Pyongyang now more than one-third smaller; food shortage issues suspected
Asahi Shimbun
7/17/2010
