Post by JacobBogle on Feb 14, 2021 6:17:53 GMT
Some of you may remember that I posted about a large map I made of North Korea in 2017. Well, I've created a new version.
The AccessDPRK 2021 Map comes in two versions, the Free Version and the Pro Version. The Pro Version has a lot of extras, but it does cost money. Since This community is about the free sharing of knowledge, I'm only going to focus on the Free Version.
The Free Version is organized according to monuments, military sites, and domestic/economic sites. Those are then broken down by province and further subdivided into roughly 70 item-specific categories.
It contains over 61,000 places and is the most up-to-date map that I could make using Google Earth.
The places in the Free Version are broken down like this: 11,659 monuments, 11,914 military-related sites, and 37,908 domestic and economic locations.
It includes just about everything you can think of. Schools, underground facilities, major factories, dams, micro hydroelectric sites, parks, air defense positions, mines, cell phone towers, airports, navy bases, ancient sites, cultural places, and scores of others.
I also tried to use distinct icons for each type of place. For example, all military tunnels are a green icon, all schools are a black & white square, all factories are a little "wrench". This might take a little bit to get used to, but I think it helps a lot if you're looking at multiple kinds of places at once to be able to pick out one kind of place from another. Of course, you can simplify it by making all of the icons the exact same by using the "Style, Color" feature if you prefer.
Experts like Joseph Bermudez and Frank V. Pabian have commented on the usefulness of this project to the open-source community, and I am really proud to finally be able to offer it. I completely remapped the country in the process of making this latest version and tried to fix any mistakes found within the older one. Of course, this was made without any institutional support and on my own time, so there could still be errors. But it is, by far, the largest map of North Korea freely available...ever.
It can help you with your own research, serve as a check on your own database, and (hopefully) will save you a lot of time trying to find certain sites or with understanding the larger trends regarding the economy, electrical grid, military developments, and more.
The only thing that I ask is that it not be used in for-profit projects (reporting on it is fine, just not using the information inside to make money) and that if you use information from it in any university or non-profit reports or other such projects, that you give appropriate credit. I'm always happy to help with public research.
I used government reports, think tank papers, western & DPRK news stories, older free databases (like North Korea Uncovered, work by "Planeman", and "NKbyPanda"), books, and any other open-source resource that I could find to aid in the accuracy and comprehensive nature of the project. The result is that AccessDPRK is a substantially different creation than anything anyone else has done in terms of size, organizational style, and the information contained within. Indeed, it's not only 15% larger than the 2017 version, but it is 5-6 times the size of any other free and downloadable database that I am aware of.
This version is also going to be the last such map of North Korea that I make. It is the culmination of thousands of hours of work going back to 2013, so it's time I work on other things (some North Korea related, some not).
I have attached a few pictures to show the sheer scale of the project. One is a direct screenshot showing the real icons used and the other is a simplified view.
This is a view of the domestic sites in this area using the actual icons.
This is a simplified view of all of the military sites around the DMZ.
Here's the downloadable file.
AccessDPRK_2021 FREE Version-v1.kmz (4.74 MB)
There's also a download link on the AccessDPRK blog if that one doesn't work for whatever reason.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me on here (not always on) or send a direct message on my website (I get those right in my email).
--Jacob Bogle
AccessDPRK.com
Patreon.com/accessdprk