River · North Korea
Amnok (Yalu)
The Amnok, also called the Yalu, is the longest river of North Korea. It flows about 790 kilometres from the volcano Paektu down to Korea Bay, an arm of the Yellow Sea.
Picture credit: TurnOnTheNight (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Jack Upland (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Jack Upland (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is the Amnok (Yalu)?
The river starts here: slopes of the volcano Paektu in the north of the country.
It ends in the Korea Bay, Yellow Sea.
Countries on the river: North Korea.
The story behind it
The Amnok begins on the slopes of Paektu, a volcano with a deep crater lake that many people in Korea treat as a special place. For most of its course the river marks the border between North Korea and China, and the two countries use different names for it, so books do not always agree on its exact length. In winter the surface can freeze hard enough for people to walk across; in summer, meltwater and monsoon rain make it swift and wide. Rafts of logs once floated down from the mountain forests to the sawmills. Today dams hold back long reservoirs and produce electricity for factories on both banks, ferries cross between the towns, and the busy city of Sinuiju stands where the river finally opens into Korea Bay.
Questions children ask
How long is the Amnok?
The Amnok is usually given as about 790 kilometres long. Since it forms a border and carries two names, different sources count its course slightly differently.
Which countries does the Amnok flow along?
In this encyclopedia the Amnok is listed as the river of North Korea. Along most of its way it also touches China, because the water itself is the border between the two states.
Where does the Amnok flow into the sea?
The Amnok ends in Korea Bay, which is part of the Yellow Sea. The port city of Sinuiju lies right at this wide, shallow mouth.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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