Supung Lake(수풍저수지) is an artificial reservoir on the border between

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 ...

and China. The lake has been created by a damming of the

Yalu River The Yalu River, known by Koreans as the Amrok River or Amnok River, is a river on the border between North Korea and China. Together with the Tumen River to its east, and a small portion of Paektu Mountain, the Yalu forms the border betwe ...

by the Sup'ung Dam, located just upstream from

Sinuiju Sinŭiju (''Sinŭiju-si'', ; known before 1925 in English as Yeng Byen City) is a city in North Korea which faces Dandong, Liaoning, China across the international border of the Yalu River. It is the capital of North P'yŏngan province. Part ...

, North Korea.

History

The Sup'ung Dam was built between 1937 and 1943 by the Japanese forces during the

Japanese invasion of Manchuria The Empire of Japan's Kwantung Army invaded Manchuria on 18 September 1931, immediately following the Mukden Incident. At the war's end in February 1932, the Japanese established the puppet state of Manchukuo. Their occupation lasted until t ...

. When it was built, the dam was on China's land, and the power station on North Korea's land. It had the capacity to power all of Korea and Manchuria in electricity. On 19 December 1972, North Korea and China signed a protocol for the Joint Protection/Proliferation and Use of Fishery Resources (8 articles) regarding the management of the Supung Lake. Another protocol was previously signed in 1959 regarding the use of fishery in the lake, but only regional representatives had written and signed this protocol.

Changsung Chalet

The Korean-style tiled-roof Changsung Chalet on the shore of the lake is the property of the

Kim Il Sung Kim Il-sung (; , ; born Kim Song-ju, ; 15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994) was a North Korean politician and the founder of North Korea, which he ruled from the country's establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994. He held the posts of ...

Kim Jong Il Kim Jong-il (; ; ; born Yuri Irsenovich Kim;, 16 February 1941 – 17 December 2011) was a North Korean politician who was the second supreme leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011. He led North Korea from the 1994 death of his father Kim ...

dynasty. There is supposedly a tunnel directly connecting the chalet and inland China.

In literature

The South-Korean writer

Ko Un Ko Un (born 1 August 1933) is a South Korean poet whose works have been translated and published in more than fifteen countries. He had been imprisoned many times due to his role in the campaign for Korean democracy and was later mentioned in K ...

wrote a poem about a man who chip away the Supung Dam for decades to " resuscitate the old (Yalu) river". The dam eventually breaks and the water is drained out of the lake, revealing the ancient tombs of the

Koguryo Goguryeo (37 BC–668 AD) ( ) also called Goryeo (), was a Korean kingdom located in the northern and central parts of the Korean Peninsula and the southern and central parts of Northeast China. At its peak of power, Goguryeo controlled most ...

and Palhae periods.Karen Thornber
Ecoambiguity: Environmental Crises and East Asian Literatures
''University of Michigan Press'', 2012 (accessed on 9 October 2019)

Sources

Reservoirs in North Korea International lakes of Asia China–North Korea border Reservoirs in China Tunnels in North Korea Tunnels in China {{NorthKorea-geo-stub