Transform Your Flight Sim Experience
with In-Depth Tracking & Analysis
Track every flight, analyse your performance,
and master your flying skills with My FS Flights
Get 10 flights free every month!
Tracked and analysed flights over miles
Samjiyon Airport sits high on the volcanic plateau below Mount Paektu in Ryanggang Province, North Korea, at an elevation of 4,544 feet, making it one of the highest-altitude airfields on the Korean peninsula. It exists primarily to serve tourist and official traffic bound for the Paektu region and the newly rebuilt city of Samjiyon, with a single long runway suited to the airfield's thin high-altitude air.
Samjiyon Airport (ZKSE) serves the city of Samjiyon in Ryanggang Province, North Korea, close to Mount Paektu, the highest peak on the Korean peninsula and a site of deep symbolic importance in North Korean state mythology. The field is used by the national carrier Air Koryo for scheduled and charter flights and by the Korean People's Air Force, making it as much a military as a civil facility. For a simulator pilot the appeal lies in its remoteness, its dramatic high-plateau setting near Paektu, and the unusual operating conditions created by its elevation.
The airfield lies within North Korean airspace in the far north of the country, near the border with China, in the immediate vicinity of the Mount Paektu massif. Samjiyon itself sits on a lava plateau in the Paektu region, an area described as the roof of the Korean peninsula, and the airport lies close to the modern township that was extensively rebuilt in the late 2010s.
Samjiyon has a single physical runway, 07/25, a hard-surfaced strip 10,820 feet in length. There is no ILS available at the field.
No communications frequencies are published for Samjiyon Airport.
Mount Paektu itself is the dominant and unmistakable landmark for locating the field, rising prominently over the surrounding plateau. The three lakes from which Samjiyon takes its name, and the large Samjiyon Grand Monument in the city, are further visual references in the immediate area of the airfield.
Samjiyon Airport has long served as the air gateway to the Paektu region, historically used for tour groups flying in to see the mountain, which North Korean state ideology treats as a sacred revolutionary site connected to the Kim family. The airport was closed in 2005 for major renovation works, which were partially funded by South Korea's Hyundai corporation as part of wider engagement projects between the two Koreas at the time. Air Koryo has operated scheduled and charter services between Samjiyon and Pyongyang, Wonsan and Chongjin, alongside use of the field by the Korean People's Air Force.
The airport continues to support Air Koryo's scheduled and charter flights linking Samjiyon with Pyongyang, Wonsan and Chongjin, primarily carrying tourists and visitors to the Paektu area. The nearby city of Samjiyon underwent a large-scale rebuilding programme completed in December 2019, and the wider Samjiyon area was opened to international tourists in December 2024, underlining the airport's continuing role as a tourism gateway to the Paektu region.
