The Tower of the Juche Idea stands on the east bank of the Taedong River, directly across from Kim Il-sung Square. At 170 metres it is one of the tallest stone towers in the world. The elevator to the observation platform near the top offers the clearest panorama of Pyongyang's extraordinary urban planning — the wide boulevards, the pastel-coloured apartment blocks, the monuments, and the surrounding hills visible in every direction.
The tower was erected in 1982 to commemorate Kim Il-sung's 70th birthday and to celebrate Juche — the North Korean ideology of self-reliance. A bronze torch glows permanently at the summit. On the riverbank below, 229 plaques from "Juche study groups" in countries around the world are fixed to the plinth. The tower is one of the few Pyongyang sites where the observation deck has historically been consistently open to foreign tourists.