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Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang

Monday, 7 April 2025 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: Asia / Asien
Category/Kategorie: General, Hotels Reading Time:  3 minutes

🔊 Listen to this Post The Ryugyong Hotel (sometimes spelled as Ryu-Gyong Hotel), or Yu-Kyung Hotel, is a 330 m (1,080 ft) tall unfinished pyramid-shaped skyscraper in Pyongyang, North Korea. Its name (lit. “capital of willows”) is also one of the historical names for Pyongyang. The building has been planned as a mixed-use development, which would include a hotel.

Construction began in 1987 but was halted in 1992 as North Korea entered a period of economic crisis after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. After 1992, the building stood topped out, but without any windows or interior fittings. In 2008, construction resumed, and the exterior was completed in 2011. The hotel was planned to open in 2012, the centenary of founding leader Kim Il Sung‘s birth. A partial opening was announced for 2013, but this was cancelled. In 2018, an LED display was fitted to one side, which is used to show propaganda animations and film scenes.

The Ryugyong Hotel is 330 m (1,080 ft) tall, making it the most prominent feature of Pyongyang’s skyline and the tallest building in North Korea. Construction of the Ryugyong Hotel was intended to be completed in time for the 80th birthday of General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and President Kim Il Sung in 1992; if this had been achieved, it would have held the title of world’s tallest hotel. Before Goldin Finance 117 in China, it was considered the tallest unoccupied building in the world.

The building consists of three wings, each measuring 100 m (330 ft) long and 18 m (59 ft) wide, lightly stepped once but otherwise sloping at 75 degrees to the ground, which converge at a common point to form a pinnacle. The building is topped by a truncated cone 40 m (130 ft) wide, consisting of eight floors that are intended to rotate, topped by a further six static floors. The structure was originally intended to house five revolving restaurants, and either 3,000 or 7,665 guest rooms, according to different sources. According to Orascom’s Khaled Bichara in 2009, the Ryugyong will not be just a hotel, but rather a mixed-use development, including “revolving restaurant” facilities along with a “mixture of hotel accommodation, apartments and business facilities”.

Read more on Wikipedia Ryugyong Hotel (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.

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