Panmunjeom flagpole
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Kijong-dong 기정동 機井洞 |
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The Panmunjom flagpole, flying the flag of North Korea.
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| Nickname(s): Propaganda Village | |
 Kijong-dong
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| Coordinates: 37°56′43″N 126°39′20″E / 37.9453°N 126.6556°E |
Kijŏng-dong, Kijŏngdong, or Kijŏng tong is a village in P'yŏnghwa-ri (Chosŏn'gŭl: 평화리; Hancha: 平和里),Kaesong-si,North Korea. It is situated in the North's half of the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Also known in North Korea as Peace Village (Chosŏn'gŭl: 평화촌; Hancha: 平和; MR: p'yŏnghwach'on), it has been widely referred to as 'Propaganda Village' (Hangul: 선전마을; Hanja: 宣傳마을; RR: seonjeon maeul) by those outside North Korea, especially in South Korean and Western media.
Kijŏng-dong is one of two villages permitted to remain in the 4-kilometer-wide (2.5 mi) DMZ set up under the 1953 armistice ending the Korean War; the other is the South Korean village of Daeseong-dong, 2.22 kilometers (1.38 mi) away.
The official position of the North Korean government is that the village contains a 200-family collective farm, serviced by a child care center, kindergarten, primary and secondary schools, and a hospital. However, observation from the South suggests that the town is an uninhabited village built in the 1950s in a propaganda effort to encourage South Korean defection and to house the DPRK soldiers manning the network of artillery positions, fortifications and underground marshalling bunkers that surround the border zone.
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