Dāndōng

Introducing Dāndōng

Just across the Yalu River (Yālù Jiāng) from North Korea, Dāndōng draws visitors hoping for a brief peek at the Hermit Kingdom. You can’t see much, but the contrast between Dāndōng’s lively riverfront and the desolate stretch of land along the Korean side is a bit eerie. Outside the city you can visit the easternmost stretch of the Great Wall, which also parallels the border.

Besides its border tourism business, Dāndōng is a hub for trade between China and North Korea. Officially, trucks rumble across the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge between the two countries, and, unofficially, North Koreans regularly cross the riverfront border to buy food and other supplies. In an effort to reduce this cross-border traffic following North Korea’s 2006 underground nuclear test, the Chinese government began erecting a fence between the two countries north of Dāndōng. Whether this fence will be extended along the roughly 1300km frontier that China shares with North Korea – and its effect on trade between the two nations – remains to be seen.

Check with CITS if you want to join a tour to North Korea. You will need to have arranged your visa in advance (most likely at the North Korean embassy in Běijīng). At the time of writing, Israeli and South Korean nationals were not being issued North Korean visas; visas for US citizens have been available on an extremely limited basis for special-event tours.

Last updated: Jul 22, 2009