Current Time in Chongjin, North Korea

Chongjin is a port city on the north-eastern coast of North Korea and the capital of North Hamgyong Province. It faces the Sea of Japan across a wide bay, with steep hills pressing close behind the shoreline and the mountains of the interior rising beyond. The Chinese and Russian borders are only a few hours away to the north, and the city lies far from Pyongyang, both physically and in atmosphere.

With a population of roughly six hundred and fifty thousand, Chongjin is the third largest city in the country. Its significance is industrial. It is known as the city of iron, dominated by the vast Kimchaek Iron and Steel Complex, together with shipyards, machine works, chemical plants and one of the largest fishing fleets on the coast. The harbour handles both domestic cargo and, at times, trade with China and Russia.

Until the twentieth century this was a small fishing village. The Japanese developed it rapidly after 1908 as a port serving Manchuria, building railways, docks and heavy industry, and by the 1930s it had become one of the major industrial centres of the Korean peninsula. It was fought over and heavily bombed during the Korean War and rebuilt in the following decades on a grand scale, with wide avenues and monumental public buildings. The famine of the 1990s hit the north-east particularly hard, and Chongjin became known abroad through the accounts of residents who lived through those years.

The city is laid out along the coast in several districts, with Pohang at its centre. Landmarks include the large central square with its bronze statues, the revolutionary museum, the Chongjin Grand Theatre and the tall monument on the hillside overlooking the port. Long sandy beaches lie within the municipal area, and the mountains of Chilbo, about a hundred kilometres to the south, are among the most spectacular landscapes in Korea, a jumble of eroded pinnacles and sea cliffs that has been compared to the Diamond Mountains.

Cultural life follows the pattern of major North Korean cities, with mass gymnastic displays, a children's palace offering music and dance instruction, sports facilities and cinemas. Local food is based on seafood, buckwheat noodles and the potato dishes typical of the cold north-east, and the province has a distinct dialect and reputation for plain speaking.

Transport rests on the railway, which runs south along the coast towards Hamhung and Wŏnsan and north towards Rason and the Chinese frontier, and on the port. Chongjin Airport handles limited domestic traffic, and road links across the mountains are difficult in winter. The nearby Rason special economic zone has given the region an unusual degree of exposure to foreign trade.

Education is centred on Chongjin University of Mining and Metallurgy, a medical university and teacher training institutions, reflecting the industrial character of the province.

Chongjin is important as the industrial capital of North Korea's north-east, a hard-working steel and fishing city whose position near two international borders gives it a distinctive place in the country.