North Korea

Introduction

North Korea has a west coast that extends from the Chinese border at the mouth of the Yalu River south to the estuarine inlet at Haeju-man, and an east coast that extends from just south of Kosong to the Russian border at Kangui. The west coast is indented and hilly, whereas the east coast has a narrow coastal plain fronting the Taebaek and Hamgyong-Sanmaek mountain ranges. The landforms of North Korea have been shaped on Pre-Cambrian crystalline rocks (granite, gneiss and schists) and Late Cretaceous and Tertiary granite intruded into rocks folded and faulted along N–S and NE–SW alignments in Jurassic and Cretaceous times. Miocene and later earth movements caused subsidence on the west coast while raising the east coast. A major N–S fault zone lies in the Sea of Japan off the east coast, forming a submarine escarpment. Because of the tilting, the principal mountain ranges lie near the east coast, so that only short rivers flow to the Sea of Japan. The coast is relatively...