The Juche Tower is a monument in Pyongyang, North Korea. Completed in 1982, it is sited on the bank of the River Taedong on the edge of Kim Il Sung Square. It was made to commemorate to 70th birthday of Kim Il Sung. It is claimed that it was designed by Kim Jong Il. Hangul is the native alphabet used to write the Korean language (as opposed to the Hanja system borrowed from China). ... Hanja (lit. ... McCune-Reischauer is one of the two most widely used Korean language romanization systems, along with the Revised Romanization of Korean, which replaced McCune-Reischauer as the official romanization system in South Korea in 2000. ... The Revised Romanization of Korean is the official Korean language romanization system in South Korea. ... A monument is a structure built for commemorative or symbolic reasons rather than for any overtly functional use. ... Pyongyang - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins/monobook/IE50Fixes. ... 1982 is a number and represents a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar Events January January 6 - William Bonin is convicted of being the freeway killer. January 8 - AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions January 11 - Mark Thatcher, son of the British Prime... River Taedong is the river that runs across the Capital of North Korea, Pyongyang. ... Kim Il-sung (April 15, 1912–July 8, 1994) was a Korean Communist politician and the ruler of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea) from 1948 until his death. ... Kim Jong-il (born February 16, 1942) has been the leader of North Korea since 1994. ...

The 170 metre structure is a four sided tapering 150 metre granite spire containing 25,550 blocks (one for each day of Kim Il Sung's life), dressed in white stone with seventy dividers and capped with a 20 metre high, 45 ton, illuminated metal torch. It is possible to ascend the tower. It is reported that the tower was built in 35 days and was dressed in 76 days. To help compare different orders of magnitude this page lists lengths between 100 m and 1 km. ...

Associated with the tower is a 30 metre high statue consisting of three figures — one with a hammer, one with a sickle and one with a writing brush (an idealised worker, a peasant and a "working intellectual"). There are six smaller groups, each 10 metres high, symbolizing other aspects of Kim Il Sung's ideology. Also close to the tower is a wall of 82 friendship plaques, apparently from foreign supporters. Around the tower there are also pavilions and water features. It is claimed that the tower has become a popular pilgrimage site for North Koreans. A hammer has a primary meaning of a really hot chick. ... For the fictional unit of money called a sickle, see Money in Harry Potter. ... An intellectual is a person who uses his or her intellect to study, reflect, and speculate on a variety of different ideas. ... An ideology is a collection of ideas. ...

The tower is named after the principle of juche, developed by Kim Il Sung as a blend of autarchy, self-reliance, Korean traditionalism, and Marxism. The name of the tower is sometimes translated as the Tower of the Juche Idea or Juche Ideology Tower. Juche (pronounced Joo-cheh), also Kimilsungism, is the official government-sponsored ideology of North Korea. ...

See also

• List of Korea-related topics