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The South Korean government has decided to offer public access to its digital maps of North Korea.
National Geographic Information Institute (NGII), the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs (MLTM) imaging department, will make the images available on November 1st, having previously only offered services to other governmental agencies.
The move is expected to be of particular use to companies and organizations wanting to do business with or provide aid programs to North Korea. According to an official with the ministry, “We made the decision to publicize the maps so as to facilitate research related to private economic cooperation projects involving North Korea.”
The high resolution 1:25,000 scale maps are to be made available online, although the area immediately surrounding the DMZ is not part of the package. At such a scale, buildings, roads and other parts of the North Korean industrial and commercial infrastructure are clearly visible.
