North Korea’s New Naval Base: Tapchon
Commercial satellite imagery indicates the new naval base under construction, recently visited by Kim Jong Un, is a long-time naval hovercraft facility in Tapchon (located within Wonsan Bay). This site has been under on-and-off construction for the last decade.
When complete, Kim expects the site to be one of the country’s flagship naval bases, meant to house the country’s latest warships and submarines that cannot be anchored at other bases.
Large surface warships require deep water. However, North Korea’s west coast is shallow and not well suited for such vessels. This new east coast facility is well positioned, with access to the deep sea. It is also surrounded by high mountains to either side, perfect for the placement of artillery and missile stations that will provide protection for the base. Moreover, the piers at the Tapchon site are already long enough to accommodate a number of large warships.
Work at the site began around 2015 but stalled for several years. Kim’s visit and instructions should lead to a significant expansion in construction activity to repurpose the site. This construction pattern is common after a visit by the leader, but especially so in this case, given Kim’s reported “need to make epochal progress” in “bolstering up the naval combat power” of the nation.
Site History
The site in Tapchon, in Kangwon’s Munchon county, has been a Korean People’s Navy hovercraft base since at least 2003. Images of the facility in 2013 show four large hovercraft sheds and numerous hovercraft observed along the coast.
But the site started to change a year later. From mid-2014, hovercraft began to appear at nearby ports and beaches, apparently moved from Tapchon. Imagery shows that by November of that year, many of the houses at the base were being demolished.
In 2015, land reclamation work was underway at the coast; in 2016, several of the piers that are now visible at the port were under construction.
In 2017, a railway line was extended from the neighboring October 3 dockyard across a newly constructed bridge into Tapchon Port. At the end of that year, thousands of concrete blocks are visible, waiting to be used to build up the piers.
Most of the piers that are visible today were completed by 2019, and in the preceding five years, a handful of buildings were constructed, including those visible behind Kim Jong Un in state media images.
Progress at the site has been relatively slow, however, and certainly pales in comparison to the speed of other priority projects, such as the Sohae Satellite Launching Station, Wonsan Kalma tourist zone and Pyongyang housing projects. Given Kim’s instructions, a significant uptick in construction activity is expected in the near term to ready the site for the country’s naval expansion plans.