Talk:Pyongyang/Archive 1

Old talk
Why is it written P'yongyang, not Pyongyang or Pyeongyang? Is it according to the official romanization of NK? I guess we need to set some rules about how to name and write korean entries in alphabet. My suggestion is to use the official S. Korean romanization. We can discuss this issue in Wikipedia Talk:Wikipedians/South Korea or should we open a talk page for this. soax
 * There is a complete lack of logic in using the southern system for the Romanization of northern words. The two Koreas have distinctly different Romanization systems. Using the southern system for northern words is not only inaccurate and sloppy – it’s lazy. They have a system that works, why would it not be used here?

Every Single Map I ahve ever seen Puts P'yongyang so leave it on this page.

I guess it's safe to follow how south korean government write the name. In www.korea.net you can easily find that that name is written as Pyongyang, not P'y^ongyang. P'y^ongyang is the transcription according to the older SK standard, I guess. But the SK standard changed a few years and foreign media haven't had time and energy to changed the false romanization. And for me, a korean, these "^o" is neither comfortable nor clear. It's important for wikipedia to follow the usage of majority, but it's also important to provide new and correct standard to the majority. (And I've written something about this theme in NK map talk page, too.) soax 18:27 Jan 20, 2003 (UTC)

Very well if someone explains why its wrong and I myself know that i know nothing really about the subject enough, i wil accept it. - fonzy

The different romanisations used in the two Koreas as well as wikipedia conventions regarding them are explained in the Naming Conventions link above. There is no "true" or "false" romanisation, by the way&mdash;there are two official standards at the moment, and no single romanisation scheme could ever be the absolute, true solution. The name is written P'yŏngyang according to the North Korean version of the McCune-Reischauer romanisation, so that is the headline, with the South Korean romanisation (Pyeongyang) in parentheses. The form Pyongyang without the diacritics, which has near universal currency in English, is where the page is located. I find nothing wrong with that. English often simplifies forms that contain diacritical marks, and most of the time it's silly fussing about those. See for example L'viv, for which the most common English name is Lviv (without the apostrophe). --Iceager 11:29, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Pyongchang shouldn't redirect here....Pyongchang is in South Korea, it's a different city. Adam Bishop 23:26 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)

From Dictionary.com, there is no '
Pyongyang

n : capital of North Korea and an industrial center; "Pyongyang is Korea's oldest city but little of its history has been preserved"
 * It's because ㅍ can be romanized as p' if you use the McCune-Reischauer romanization or as p if you use the revised romanization. Today the revised version is recommended. -- TonyM ｷﾀ━( °∀° )━ｯ!!  17:40, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

樂浪 district
I've seen map(s?) of Pyongyang that label 樂浪 as "Rangnang":  

And two pages that mark its Hangul as 낙랑, not 락랑:  

(Sorry in all of the pages you do have to wade through the rest of the place names / the rest of the text a bit to find it)

And surely enough 낙랑 would end up being pronounced as Rangnang after you shift the r/n and nasalise the ㄱ. Do people think that is actually correct and what we have on the page is wrong? We have Rakrang-guyŏk (락랑구역; 樂浪區域) at the moment. - KittySaturn 05:17, 2005 Jan 1 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what your suggestion or question was. Do you mean the article should say Rangnang instead of Rakrang? I agree that I'd like to see some sources on the Rakrang pronunciation, and for Amrokkang, while we're at it. I have had a look into SEM'S Reference Grammar of Korean, but I haven't yet found any references on Standard North Korean pronunciation of -ㄱㄹ- and -ㅂㄹ-. The Yale romanisation table says -ngn- and -mn-, but I guess the table simply leaves remarks about NK pronunciation to other sections. – Wikipeditor 13:49, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
 * P.S. Could it even be Rangrang? Looking at 독립 tongrip, anything seems possible.

Rangrang confirmed. Wikipeditor

Cars
I have reworded the section that claimed that there were no private cars... it's simply not true. Go and have a look, or actually, simply look at the picture already in the article. Wikipedia should not confuse propaganda with facts. Metro0 23:30, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hmm... Just because cars can be seen, does that mean they are privately owned? One thing would be to say there WHERE no cars, but how can be substansiate that there are no PRIVATE cars? --Konstantin 15:42, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I would have to agree with Konstantin there...The city is obviously renown for its mass propaganda, and you see a very controlled section of it. Most likely governement officials or a cheap trick to make the city appear less cold and menacing than it already is.

There is definitely private vehicle ownership in N.Korea but they belong to government officials and other people who can pull very very much weight with the Government, also there is cars in ownership of people who are there doing humanitarian work there, a I read once a joke went that once they have to leave the city at the order of the N.Korea government the handful of cars that would go back onto the market would create a saturated market from the expolsion of for sale cars. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.59.66.123 (talk) 16:53, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Clearly people cannot resist making propaganda out of simple point. There are few cars on the road, many of these are government/military owned.--Jack Upland (talk) 04:23, 24 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Pyongyang is well represented on Google Earth. There are very few cars. In fact, the city appears practically deserted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.215.115.31 (talk) 15:39, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Image
God, that image is awful. Even at full resolution, it's hard to see anything. Can anybody find something better? Please? -- Visviva 04:06, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The pyramid is fake in the image, it was never finished and is just cement. --75.72.145.241 (talk) 18:10, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Article moved to Pyeongyang
It seems that the DPRK spells it Pyongyang, (as well as being the most common representation I've seen in English), so it should probably be moved back. Also, it looks like this has been discussed before an the consensus was for Pyongyang.

The state-run news agency KCNA always spells it Pyongyang as far as I can see. You can search KCNA archives to verify this. --Alexxx1 (talk/contribs) 12:39, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Name
Can people make up their mind and clean up the mix of Phyŏngyang, Phyongyang and P'yŏngyang? If “P. Directly Governed City” is the name's translation into English, shouldn't it contain the English form (Pyongyang)? Is it spelled “Phyŏngyang Directly Governed City” in an English-language source from North Korea? Wikipeditor 17:25, 16 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The user who edited the names to be "Phyongyang", saying that it is "in accordance with North Korean standard romanization", is wrong. Pyongyang is never spelt "Phyongyang", as an exception to the ㅍ = Ph rule. All official sources write "Pyongyang" only. There is therefore no reason to use either Phyŏngyang or Phyongyang. -- 203.88.224.196 06:00, 28 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Would anybody oppose a move from (now) P'yŏngyang back to Pyongyang? Wikipeditor 12:37, 13 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Not I. For one thing, Naming conventions (Korean) specifies that we should use the title without diacritics or apostrophes (although that's something of an anachronism).  For another, North Korea itself (or at least KCNA) uses "Pyongyang" and not "P'y&#335;ngyang."  -- Visviva 13:41, 13 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree, move it back to Pyongyang. Bsheppard 18:49, 19 October 2006 (UTC) ;)

Done. Wikipeditor 09:43, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Pyongyang Chronicles
I removed the Pyongyang Chronicles link from the External Links section since there hardly seems to be any true proof that it's a legitimate news website (it doesn't even cover the recent nuclear test) and it was added by an anonymous contributor who seems to vandalize. I've done some web searching in trying to determine any legitimacy to the site and I haven't come up with much. I've started this discussion in case anyone disagrees. Ando228 21:32, 27 October 2006 (UTC)


 * It's clearly a joke, but a lot of people seem to be taken in by it. It's likely to be added to External Links again in the future, and we should just remove it again.  --Reuben 20:40, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Heijo
Why does Heijo redirect here? The word does not exist in the article except for the notice. --Golbez 09:09, 31 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It's under "historic names": During the Japanese occupation, it was also known as Heijō, which is simply the Japanese reading of the Chinese characters 平壌 the name Pyongyang consists of. --Reuben 19:10, 31 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Durr, I was searching for "Heijo", not with a macron. Thanks. --Golbez 13:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC

Population
Just wanted to inform you that, according to the German Wikipedia, Pyongyang has 3.871.335 inhabitants as of January 1st, 2007. Source is given on the German article page. I know that all the numbers of inhabitants are only numbers that come directly from the North Korean government which don't have to be the right ones. Though, the value from the year 1993 is neither "confirmed" and very, very outdated.

toben
 * I'm curious as to why we're using "prelimanary results" from the 2008 census. Have they still not been tallied?Mk5384 (talk) 01:12, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Confusion about Lelang Jun and Lelang-guk
The Chinese commandary of Lelang Jun formed after the fall of Gojoseon was not in Pyongyang. First of all, the Chinese relics from Pyongyang are from the Later Han (25 AD - 220 AD) era, not from the Former Han era. I have not heard of a single Chinese relic from the Former Han era from the area of Pyongyang. See my article at http://knol.google.com/k/byeongju-park/gojoseon/2zvfgrgyend5c/5. What was around Pyongyang was Lelang-guk, not Lelang Jun. Lelang originally referred to the names of two rivers around Beijing. Lelang Jun would stretch over 1,000 miles if the capital of the Lelang Commandery was located in Pyongyang, and become as big as ~ 1/2 of the rest of China. This did not happen. The Lelang Commandery was located around the Liaohe river, the location of the last remnant of Gojoseon. Lelang-guk did not stretch to the area around Beijing, either. The territory that a successful expedition of Later Han took from the Koreans was controlled by a vassal state called Lelang-guk. The communication lines between Lelang-guk and China were soon disrupted and history books report that China had difficulty sending their appointee to Lelang (which refers to Lelang-guk in this case). The close tie with China between Lelang-guk and Later Han and its successors introduced many Chinese artifacts into the Pyongyang area, some of which are found as relics in the present day. At any rate, the confusion between Lelang Jun (Lelang Commandery) and Lelang-guk must be avoided. While Lelang Jun lasted around the Liaohe river for some time, Lelang Jun was never present in the Korean peninsula. The old theory that Lelang Jun was placed in the Korean peninsula turned out to be a fabrication when it was discovered that a monument had been carried across the Yellow Sea to be planted near Pyongyang and pottery carrying the seals from the Former Han era turned out to be fakes. What historians did find, however, was plenty of relics showing Later Han influence around Pyongyang. The difference between Later Han period and Former Han period makes a big difference because the lack of relics in the Pyongyang area proves that Wimanjoseon was located outside of the Korean peninsula. Youngbjp (talk) 19:40, 7 January 2009 (UTC)


 * There are no strong evidence about existence of Lelang in Pyongyang, these Chinese relics came from Goguryeo's tombs, these relics were simply trading items. No Chinese religious or ceremonial artifacts and relics were discovered in North Korea, suggesting these Lelang theory is wrong. Japanese historians during occupational period have introduced and manipulated ancient Korean history in order to claimed on Korea. --Korsentry 02:13, 11 February 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by KoreanSentry (talk • contribs)

Pyongyang as "the" capital of Gojoseon??? maybe, maybe not ...
Promotion by North Korea alleging that Pyongyang has been the capital of Gojoseon has to be carefully considered. While it is possible that Pyongyang was indeed a capital of Gojoseon (Gojoseon was a confederate system with three large kingdoms), what Gojoseon was not was the capital of Wimanjoseon, the longest-lasting part of Gojoseon that fell to the forces of Former Han. Hwandangogi, a Korean history book, places the capital of Gojoseon around the Liaohe river. Based on recent archeological discovery, which unearthed more relics from the Liaohe river region than from Pyongyang, it is more probable that the most important cultural center of Gojoseon was located around the Lioahe river. Yes, Pyongyang was an important local center of Gojoseon, but that does not guarantee that "the capital" of Gojoseon was in Pyongyang. Youngbjp (talk) 19:40, 7 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Again, this theory was introduced by Japanese scholars in attempt to reduce the Korean history, by studying distribution of Dolmens and Liaoning bronze dagger culture, we can rough fully suggested that Gojoseon started from Liaodong & Southern Manchuria then spread to Korean peninsula. --Korsentry 02:17, 11 February 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by KoreanSentry (talk • contribs)

Direct links to Korean Wikipedia in body text
This article contains 2 such links;

These links are coded like this:  and

They appear like this:

신시 and 낙랑

This seems to have caused problems for one user (reported on the help desk); I suspect that this is not a 'standard' way of doing things, but I don't know the conventions used here - if you agree that they should be changed or removed, please make the edits. Cheers,  Chzz  ►  11:42, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

"다이나믹 로동"
It seems quite unlikely that the alleged official slogan of Pyongyang would have a foreign loanword like "dainamik" in it. I don't even think this word is part of the North Korean vocabulary. Not only does "dainamik rodong" never appear in North Korean websites like KCNA or Naenara, even the single word dainamik ("다이나믹") is not there. Nor do South Korean sources which write about North Korea (Open Radio, Daily NK, etc.) mention this phrase. I only see it in bulletin boards and other user-generated content sites (like the Korean-language version of Uncyclopedia). cab (talk) 07:29, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


 * It looks like some vandal inserted this as a joke last week. Then anti-vandal patrollers kept reverting him when he came back to remove his own joke: ... cab (talk) 07:43, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Biggest Stadiums?
50,000 and 70,000 capacity are not the biggest stadiums in the world? Who wrote this shit?

Gigantic building just NW of Pyongyang
On Google Earth 39.062 N and 125.677 E there is a very big rectangular building almost 1/2 kilometer wide. What is this building? Who or what arm of the North Korean government owns it? What is it used for? What adminstrative district is it in? ... A building so large as this, it has got to be a landmark. Mr Accountable (talk) 00:47, 25 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Maybe it's one of their nuclear weapons factories--  Someone35  18:44, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

It looks like an industrial complex of some kind, perhaps related to agriculture as it is surrounded by cultivated fields. I think any sensitive installation would be better hidden, and possibly underground.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:27, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

History
The history section has no mention of when the city was besieged and occupied during the Japanese invasion of Korea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Pyongyang_%281592%29 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.145.123.24 (talk) 06:31, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Current political and social significance, within the context of North Korea as a whole
Anyone? 173.228.85.18 (talk) 07:30, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Baghdad as a sister city?
It says that as of today (21 September 2011) that Baghdad, Iraq is one of Pyongyang's sister cities, but I cannot find a source that verifies this. So, can someone clarify this for me?

Rickington (talk) 20:36, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

A shameful Shortage of Historical Pictures!!!
All pictures about this city are modern/early modern ones (That is, under Japanese and Communist rule). Although most of the city was razed during Korean War, aren't there any surviving paintings and picture about Pyongyang during Joseon Dynasty?

For a city of 4000 years of history, there is a shameful shortage of historical pictures.

We need(for example)
(In traditional Korean Paintings) Old maps and/or Panorama paintings of Pyongyang, The paintings of famous people from Pyongyang of Joseon Dynasty/Events happened in Pyongyang during Joseon Dynasty,

(In Postcards and Black&White photos taken by Japanese Adventurers and Western Missionaries) The city walls, the gates, civilian and government houses during Joseon Dynasty, Lives of Yangban ruling class and ordinary civilians.

(In Modern photos) unearthed artifacts in Pyongyang. imaginary painting & models based on historical records.

PhilaSiti (talk) 17:41, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

How did Wikipedians take photos of Pyongyang?
I thought that western people aren't allowed to enter North Korea, aren't they? And North Koreans can't upload it themselves since their internet is heavily censored--  Someone35  18:40, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * North Korea is not closed off to Westerners - media, business travelers and political figures go there all the time; it's just tough to get in (and presumably impossible this week for obvious reasons). Note the reference to regular rail service to Moscow and Beijing - not all Wikipedians are American. Visitors are tightly controlled and accompanied, which only means the recent images seen in this article are of places the visitors were allowed to see. But assuming one doesn't attempt to take pictures of "sensitive" things, then I don't imagine the powers that be would prevent images from being posted of things like the Arch of Triumph, or even that big hotel. 68.146.80.110 (talk) 15:55, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Someone35 - You seem to assume that all people who contribute to Wikipedia are western people. Don't you know most of the world's population live in Asia! 81.156.190.7 (talk) 12:59, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

81.156.190.7- It is true that most of the world's population lives in Asia, but this is the English Wikipedia. Therefore, most of the contributors are either from the United States or the Commonwealth of Nations (aka British Commonwealth). People from the U.S. and Commonwealth have a really hard time getting into North Korea. The only pictures are of things like hotels, monuments, army parades, etc. Obviously, there are poor and malnourished North Koreans, but there are never pictures of poor North Koreans. Agent 78787. (Want to talk? Fire away.) 19:10, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * False, most people on the world speak English, so contributors on English Wikipedia could be from anywhere. OBrasilo (talk) 19:54, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * No, they don't!--Jack Upland (talk) 21:45, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

It's fairly easy to get in to North Korea. You could join your local DPRK friendship association and be invited to attend various celebrations, confrences etc in NK. Failing that, you book a trip with a travel agency, tourists nearly never get rejected, including Americans. Photography is usually unrestricted once you're on the ground. Lm2f (talk) 19:38, 17 May 2012 (UTC)


 * See Koryo Tours for example. It's very easy to get there, for everyone.  When I was there last year, photography was restricted, however.  We were told to take no photos of the military or the countryside, and tourists were sometimes told to delete photos, especially on leaving when all cameras were checked.  However, it was quite possible to get photos of ordinary people, some of whom showed some signs of malnutrition.  You can say it is a Potemkin village, but having travelled from south to north, all I can say is that it's a very large Potemkin village.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:12, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Population over 5 million?
A press release from the Korea Central News Agency dated December 20 2011 (in English) is titled "At Least Five Million Pyongyangites Mourn Demise of Kim Jong Il". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.190.241.47 (talk) 23:06, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Given precedent, I'd take any figures coming out at this time with a grain of salt. They could well be counting former residents living elsewhere in NK. Also, it's not uncommon for census numbers and claimed numbers to not jive, even in the west. 68.146.80.110 (talk) 16:00, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Nickname/Motto?
Why was the nickname "Dynamic Labors (Korean: 력동적 로동; Ryŏkttongjŏk Rodong)" removed? Was it due to a lack of reference/source? Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 20:30, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm surprised nobody noticed this before. Dynamic Labors (다이나믹 로동) is a famous joke (internet meme) in South Korea. Since I can't find anything (both in the article and in the English/Korean web in general) regarding the motto of Pyongyang, let alone Dynamic Labors/력동적 로동 being it, I'm deleting it. Also, 류경 is a nickname, not a motto. Yooss (talk) 07:19, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

I was wrong about nobody noticing it; I didn't read the talk page carefully enough. I'm still fixing the article anyway. Yooss (talk) 07:22, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

NPOV
I have deleted section called "Security" about checkpoints around the city because the citation only referred to a specific period and was based on a single anonymous informant. When I was there as a tourist last year we passed through no checkpoints at Pyongyang.

I also deleted the claim that it was hard to know how much the metro was used as tour groups only travelled on it a few stops. Well, when I travelled on it, it was packed.

There seems to be a major POV issue here. There are an abundance of sources with a heavy anti-DPRK bias and very little evidence to back them. For example, the British Sun newspaper has claimed that the metro has only a couple of stations and the passengers are actors. To any sensible person this sounds like paranoia. The Ryugyeong Hotel was widely described as a disaster, but now it appears that it will open.

The standpoint of many Wikipedia users is, however, to assume the worst and the dismiss even the slightest piece of good news as lying propaganda and tricks (see the comments about cars above). Any negative report is accepted, while any positive report is treated with scepticism or simply dismissed. This is bias and a violation of the NPOV policy.--Jack Upland (talk) 06:08, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Agree. The whole article wreaks of propaganda...almost like a surmon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.14.204.56 (talk) 02:47, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

i'm not anti-north korean (or anti-american, or pro or anti ANY nation). i'm just anti waste and extravagance no matter WHO perpetuates it. the ryugyeong hotel will be a disaster WHENEVER it opens. the idea of a one hundred five floor hotel is ridiculous. even if it is a "mixed use facility" (featuring office space, businesses, hotel rooms, and residential suites), it will be not be cost effective. it will be an economic disaster, a monument to the "bigger is better"/"more is more" mentality that, unfortunately, is evident in socialist as well as capitalist coutries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.127.228.117 (talk) 03:11, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * That's typical of the attitude I'm talking about. To judge from your comment about newspapers, you know very little about the DPRK, but you are confident to give an economic analysis about a hotel that hasn't opened yet.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:01, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

pl wiki
Please change Polish interwiki; in pl is Phenian. 77.253.81.3 (talk) 15:18, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Modern photos
The gallery could use some modern photos. Here are some that could be added by someone who knows how to do so: Kendall-K1 (talk) 12:36, 18 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I think there are quite a few current photos already.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:22, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

newspapers and magazines?
in the talk section of another article about north korea (about north korean cinema, to be exact), i suggested that western scholars do some research using copies of newspapers and magazines published in pyongyang. now i see that no newspapers and magazines are listed as having been published in pyongyang. is it possible that pyongyang is devoid of newspapers and periodicals? if such entities exist, they should be mentioned in the "pyongyang" article, as well as any television or radio stations that exist in the capital. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.127.228.117 (talk) 02:58, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * See Media in North Korea.--Jack Upland (talk) 02:45, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Traffic Lights
Someone has added information about traffic lights in the Cars section. I don't think there are many traffic lights in Pyongyang. They use traffic police. I wonder if this is being confused with manually operated traffic lights...--Jack Upland (talk) 00:52, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Established 1122 BC?
This date in the infobox doesn't correspond to anything in the article. What is its source? &#39;&#39;&#39;tAD&#39;&#39;&#39; (talk) 20:33, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Copyright problem
This article has been tagged as part of a large-scale clean-up project of multiple article copyright infringement. (See the investigation subpage) It will likely be deleted after one week unless it can be verified to be free of infringement. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions must be deleted. Major contributions by contributors who have been verified to have violated copyright in multiple articles may be presumptively deleted in accordance with Copyright violations.

Interested contributors are invited to help clarify the copyright status of this material or rewrite the article in original language at the temporary page linked from the article's face. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. --Mkativerata (talk) 11:59, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Twin cities of Pyongyang
Does anyone have any source as for the twin cities of Pyongyang? Someone puts NYC as one of the twin cities without any reliable source, and I highly doubt that it's true. MagicWord (talk) 06:43, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
 * MagicWord I think sockpuppet accounts using different IP's have added it, you can comment at Sockpuppet investigations/130.85.194.182.I will remove that for now - TheChampionMan1234 21:44, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Boosterism everywhere
There is boosterism everywhere, I encourage all editors to enforce neutrality. Wentworth Washington (talk) 17:09, 18 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Can you give any examples?--Jack Upland (talk) 02:04, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * When I wrote that I didn't realise that Wentworth had already edited the article to remove some examples of "boosterism". The only example that I would accept in that category was the statement that visitors had described Pyongyang as a beautiful city — but that does come from the Library of Congress Country Study. Is the Library of Congress pro-NK?--Jack Upland (talk) 00:37, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Name
(1) The information about the name seems misleading, if not plain wrong. The infobox describes "Phyŏngyang Chikhalsi" as the "Official North Korean variant". At least in English communication, the DPRK uses "Pyongyang", as seen in this recent report from KCNA:. The first sentence says: "approved: P’yŏngyang". Who approved it? The citation is an amateur website which cites US military intelligence (a contradiction in terms).

(2) On the same topic, in the "Name" section, the claim that there was a suggestion that the city be renamed after Kim Il Sung or Jong Il seems questionable. The source reads like a rant and is very vague on specifics. I'm not sure it's notable, in any case.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:53, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * 1) It's vague and unsourced, at best. Perhaps the intention here was to explicitly state that it's the North Korean official variant of McCune–Reischauer. In the absence of reliable sources we should remove these items.
 * 2) I consider Daily NK generally reliable (though rarely the ideal) source, especially if something is written in the voice of the paper instead of "a defector says". Here is another story from Daily NK that repeats the claim (also attributed to a defector; probably that of the first story): – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 13:51, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

The capital of ... North Korea
Why should we not use the common English name "North Korea", when we describe where Pyongyang is the capital? North Korea is also (of course!) the name of the article that is linked. Is there any WP policy supporting, or other reason to prefer, the cumbersome official name "Democratic People's Republic..."? I tried changing yesterday, but was reverted. St.nerol (talk) 11:06, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
 * We should absolutely use "North Korea". There is no policy driven reason not to. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:30, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The lead currently states: "Pyongyang....is the capital and largest city of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (commonly known as North Korea)." 's edit removed all reference to the DPRK. I don't think that is appropriate. The country's article begins, "North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea...". I don't think the format particularly matters, but I think we should acknowledge the official as well as the common name where practically possible.--Jack Upland (talk) 21:41, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
 * When is it not practically possible? We could always write "Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)" or some variant thereof, just as we could write that Stockholm is the capital of "The Kingdom of Sweden". It seems that practically every country has an official name, that's seldom used. Should we always acknowledge the official name when writing about a country? And if not, why make an exception here? St.nerol (talk) 09:16, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree with St.nerol and not Jack Upland, here. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 12:42, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I think I've found the relevant policy! The WP:MOS states: "Places should generally be referred to consistently by the same name as in the title of their article." St.nerol (talk) 09:20, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, let's do that. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 12:42, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I accept the decision, but I'd like to clarify the issue, just in case this comes up again (which it very likely will). I hope that this doesn't lead to an attempt to eradicate all mentions of the term "DPRK". The policy does not preclude the use of other names in particular contexts or the addition of other names in brackets. It's not stylistically practical to pepper every article with alternative names in brackets, but I see no problem with acknowledging the official name in the lead. Yes, many countries have official names, some of which are seldom used. In this case, the DPRK regime always calls itself DPRK, and never NK. Many countries go through changes of regimes, changing from a kingdom to a republic etc, and the official name changes to reflect that, while the capital remains the same. But the DPRK/NK is completely associated with the one regime. In addition, Korea is a divided country, and the DPRK regime claims to be the government of the whole country (as does the ROK). (The common concept that there is one Korea was illustrated in the recent Winter Olympics.) We say Seoul "is the capital and largest metropolis of the Republic of Korea (commonly known as South Korea)". It is the same with other divided countries. The article on Taipei says it "is the capital and a special municipality of Taiwan (officially known as the Republic of China, "ROC")". Beijing "is the capital of the People's Republic of China". The lead of the East Berlin article says, "Officially it was referred to as "Berlin, Hauptstadt der DDR" ("Berlin, Capital of the GDR")". Similarly, we say that Erich Honecker "led the German Democratic Republic (East Germany)". The lead of the Hanoi article uses both "Democratic Republic of Vietnam" and "North Vietnam". Similarly, we state that "Aden was the capital of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen". I don't think this particularly matters here. In fact, on reflection, the previous text was somewhat contradictory. The DPRK "officially" comprises the whole of Korea, and so Pyongyang is not the largest city in the DPRK. Seoul is the largest city and was the official capital until 1972. Therefore it is better to say that Pyongyang is the largest city in NK, as it is clearly the largest city north of the DMZ. However, I think we should still acknowledge "DPRK" as the official name where appropriate.--Jack Upland (talk) 00:57, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Heijo (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 20:16, 24 March 2018 (UTC)