Google Earth Blog

The amazing things about Google Earth


north korea

Watching North Korea from above

The most recent Google Earth imagery update included some images of Pyongyang dated April 22 and April 23, 2017. It’s a pity they weren’t from a week earlier as North Korea celebrated its 105th anniversary on April 15 with a spectacular march past. There was another march for Army Day on April 25th.

We also came across a story that highlights the dangers of trying to interpret satellite imagery without sufficient background information. There was a story that was published by a number of media outlets that said that North Korea appeared to be building artificial islands with military installations on them. A parallel was drawn with China’s island building efforts in the South China Sea. However, a quick look at the locations mentioned in the story reveals that the islands in question are not artificial. Then the website 38 North published this article, essentially debunking the entire story. It turns out the islands and related construction are just part of a land reclamation project, not unlike many others along North Korea’s coasts. We can see it being constructed starting in 2011 using Google Earth’s Landsat/Sentinel-2 mosaics:


Land reclamation wall being constructed.

 

Not far to the west there is a similar wall that has been there since at least 1984 (the oldest available imagery). Below we show the extent of land reclamation behind the sea wall:

before
after

‘Before and after’ showing land reclamation in North Korea 1984 to 2016.

Another interesting story from 38 North is this one, where they spotted North Koreans apparently playing volley ball near the Punggye-ri nuclear test site. Unfortunately, that imagery has not made it into Google Earth.

For the locations above and some outlines of 2017 imagery, download this KML file.

Flash floods in North Korea

Normally when we look at satellite imagery of North Korea it is because there is something interesting relating to the politics of the country, such as statues, uranium plants or nuclear tests.

We recently came across this article about a flash flood event that struck the northern towns of Sonbong and Rason back in August 2015, so we had a look at the imagery. There is quite a lot to see. Luckily, the region is fairly sparsely populated, so there is not a lot of damage to infrastructure. Almost all the rivers in the region have clearly widened dramatically due to the flash flood.

What we found interesting is that many of the rivers seem to have flooded even though they have relatively small catchment areas. Normally, floods are most common for large rivers with large catchment areas, whereas these are mostly just streams a few kilometres long. Also the floods seem to have been confined to a relatively small area around the two towns and a bit further north, as we could not find signs of flooding further inland.


A bridge washed away.


Some houses washed away (we count 6).

To see the above locations and a number of other interesting sights in Google Earth download this KML file.

North Korea – Statues and Uranium

We have looked at censorship of aerial imagery in Google Earth and even noted censorship of 3D imagery. However, censorship rarely extends to satellite imagery, as only the country in which the satellite imaging company is based really has much control over what is released. We believe Israel has their satellite imagery down-sampled to a lower resolution before it gets into Google Earth and Iraq and Afghanistan simply have not had any satellite imagery updates in the last few years. But most of the rest of the world gets uncensored satellite imagery and they can’t do a lot about it. In 2011, for example, we brought you a story about how Sweden was displeased that their censorship of their own mapping products was proving ineffective because of satellite imagery being uncensored.

Today we are looking at a couple of stories about North Korea. It is one of the most secretive regimes in the world, but there is little it can do about satellite imagery and the fact that it is freely available to much of the world via Google Earth.

The first story is this article from 38 North. The article makes good use of Google Earth imagery to monitor key sites related to Uranium mining and refining in North Korea. Google Earth has imagery from 2003 to 2014 for one location and 2004 to 2015 for the other. The article also features an image for one of the locations from Airbus Defence and Space that is not currently in Google Earth. Interestingly, one of the locations has an image from July 8th, 2015 that has been recently added to Google Earth. It is not yet in ‘historical imagery’ so it was likely added in the last week or so.

The second story is this one, which is about the replacement of statues of Kim Il Sung with statues featuring both Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il. Again, satellite imagery from Google Earth is used to good effect.

To find the locations mentioned in both stories download this KML file .

Although Google hasn’t updated any of its ‘imagery update’ maps since early June it is relatively easy to find updates using the historical imagery feature. You can spot changes visually as you move the timeslider or you can take screenshots of different dates and then compare them using an image editor. As you can see below, North Korea gets quite good coverage, with many locations having more frequent updates than many parts of Europe or the US. Europe and the US do have higher resolution aerial imagery, which we will not be seeing any time soon over North Korea.


Imagery updates for North Korea in Google Earth from May 2015 to date.

Note that there is some new imagery that is not yet in ‘historical imagery’ that is not shown in the above map.

North Korean Nuclear Test in Google Earth

North Korea Nuclear Test in Google EarthThe test of what may have been a nuclear bomb in North Korea has stirred up a political storm around the world. You can check out in Google Earth some of the locations in North Korea where they have been working on the technology by viewing this Google Earth file from jeffrey at Armscontrolwonk.com. Also, if you load up the USGS Seismic Real-time Monitoring tool for Google Earth you can see where the seismic activity was detected (a 4.2 Magnitude disturbance) yesterday. Here is a slideshow of screenshots of satellite photos from Eweek. Here is some analysis of the nuclear infrastructure in North Korea from GlobalSecurity. And here is a New York Times article which shows a screenshot from Google Earth of the test area.
This Google Earth content, showing the North Korean locations, has been spreading around the Internet,. The national and international news media have been showing Google Earth satellite photos and the seismic reports on TV many times during the last 24 hours. Google Earth is becoming an increasingly important visual tool for news which requires unique geographic perspectives on areas few people are familiar with. [UPDATE: for other examples of the North Korean situation in Google Maps, check out this story from GoogleMapsMania]