Welcome to the Pyongyang City Map.
What you see here is not a conventional city plan – it's a cartography of emotions, memories, and unspoken connections. Each marker, each color, each line tells a story. Sometimes loudly. Often quietly.
This map is the visual heart of the project “Postcards from Pyongyang.”
It reveals fictional postcards written in an imagined version of North Korea – messages from people who may never have existed, but whose voices feel undeniably real.
Each postcard is a fragment. A whisper. A moment suspended between silence and revelation.
The Markers
The stars on the map represent one postcard stored in the system – Move over a marker to open a postcard info window. Click the marker to show connections to related cards.
The color of each marker reflects its thematic cluster – such as system, market, secrecy, feeling, or technology. The meanings remain open to your interpretation.
The Background Colors / Heatmaps
The soft gradients you see are heatmaps showing emotional intensity.
You can select different emotions (like anger, hope, love, fear...) from the “Timeline” menu on the right.
Red means strong intensity. Gray means quiet zones.
You can also adjust the time slider to explore how emotions shift over time.
Connections
Some postcards are connected – by relationships, history, or subtext.
When you click on a marker, red lines appear to show links to other entries. These are not just paths, but conversations across time and distance.
Statistics
If you're curious, toggle the stats panel in the top right corner.
It shows average and total emotional values across all visible cards.
But numbers aren't everything. Sometimes one glance says more than any graph.
And now?
You’re free to explore. Or follow a thread. Or simply get lost for a while.
This map is a living system. It changes.
New postcards appear. Relationships evolve. Old voices return.
This map is not exact. But it’s honest.
It may not show truth – but perhaps the possibility of truth, within silence.
You can reopen this help window any time by clicking the info icon on the right bottom of this page
