Rural North Korea Is Rapidly Changing - Photos From The FIRST Twenty Counties Modernised (2024 Batch)
With all the commotion around the New York Times and Wall Street Journal articles about how the DPRK is on the rise, as well as the recent visit by Xi Jinping, I figured it would be worth showing off some of the rural development going on in the country.
A lot of people are aware of the development going on in Pyongyang - the Songhwa and Hwasong districts have featured in almost every mainstream article on the economic success of the DPRK, but these articles often leave out what's going on outside of Pyongyang in the provinces.
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All twenty photos shown are from the first years batch of the 20×10 Regional Development Policy, constructed in 2024. As part of the policy, twenty different counties are modernised with newly built industrial factories as well as infrastructure to go along with it.
In 2025, to policy was expanded to include "three essential projects" per county, which includes hospitals, leisure facilities and grain management facilities. Since these counties were developed in 2024, those projects sit outside the scope of this specific batch of developments.
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In the top left I've included a picture of the DPRK, along with Pyongyang in red and the relevant county in blue, so that the scale of how far and wide this project is can be seen in clear view. It's not just around Pyongyang, nor is it just along the border areas, but all across the country.
If you'd like to see a map of all the counties being developed, including the ones currently under construction this year, here is a link to that: https://imgur.com/a/2tYC5yx