Mt. Paektu (Baekdu) & Heaven Lake

The Korean Peninsula's highest volcano (2,744 m), holding Heaven Lake in its summit caldera.

The mountain matters deeply to Korean, Chinese and Manchu people. Old Korean stories link it to the birth of the first Korean kingdom, and it is mentioned in the national anthems of both North and South Korea. The name Baekdu means "white-headed mountain", because its peaks are covered in snow for about eight months of the year and dotted with pale pumice stone.

The Millennium Eruption

Around the year 946, Paektu exploded in what scientists call the Millennium Eruption, one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions on Earth in the last 5,000 years. It blasted out roughly 100 cubic kilometres of rock and ash, destroying the mountain's summit and creating the caldera. Ash from the eruption has been found in Hokkaido, Japan, and even in the ice of faraway Greenland. Historical records from Japan describe "white ash rain" falling on the city of Nara that year. The volcano is still active: its last small eruption was in 1903.

Heaven Lake

Heaven Lake sits about 2,190 metres above sea level and has a shoreline about 14 kilometres around. It is very deep for a mountain lake, more than 370 metres at its deepest point, which makes it the deepest lake in China. It is usually frozen from mid-October to mid-May. Sixteen peaks over 2,500 metres stand around its rim. Water spills out through a gap in the north side and tumbles down a waterfall about 68 metres high, feeding the Songhua River. Two other big rivers, the Yalu and the Tumen, also begin on the mountain.

Who does it belong to?

Treaties signed by China and North Korea in 1962 and 1964 drew the border straight across the mountain, so the highest peak, Janggun Peak, is in North Korea and about 54.5 percent of Heaven Lake belongs to North Korea, with the rest in China. Today most visitors climb the gentler Chinese side, where a large area around the volcano was named a UNESCO Global Geopark in 2024. Scientists keep a close eye on the mountain because it is thought to erupt about once every hundred years.

On the globe

The model shows the snowy volcano with Heaven Lake filling the caldera at its summit, on the border of North Korea and China. Zoom in to look down into the crater and see the lake ringed by peaks.