Special cities are one of the first-level administrative divisions within

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...

. There are four special cities in North Korea.

Position in hierarchy and types

Special cities are the higher-ranked administrative divisions in North Korea. There are three kinds of special cities in North Korea. The first level cities have equal status to the

provinces A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

List of special cities

Note: Pyongyang is classified as a capital city (''chikhalsi''), not a special city as Seoul in South Korea. In fact, the North Korean national newspaper and broadcasting say "Pyongyang ''Chikhalsi''". Some sources, most of them coming from South Korea, refer the city as a special city; however, these are old sources. Moreover, South Korea has corrected the city as a directly governed city, according to a South Korean newspaper in 1994. The official name of Pyongyang would be "Pyongyang''-si''" in the Republic of Korea, which officially claims to represent the entire peninsula.

List of defunct special cities

References

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Position in hierarchy and types

List of special cities

List of defunct special cities

See also

References

Further reading