Photos show luxury boat with 50m pool and water slides near Kim Jong Un's summer retreat

Photos reveal luxury boat with 50m pool and water slides near Kim Jong Un's summer retreat

An 80m (263ft) luxury vessel has been seen repeatedly in satellite images off North Korea's Wonsan coast from July through mid-October this year.

Its most striking feature is the 50m swimming pool running along the deck, with a set of waterslides at one end.

After remaining unused for months at a maintenance facility, it moved in early July to waters off a stretch of coastline known as the Kalma Peninsula.

That area is near Wonsan, a seaside resort with a large villa used by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his family.

It was not the only big vessel on the move. Several others were also repeatedly spotted near Kim's villa in satellite images reviewed by the BBC.

These vessels are widely thought to be used by Kim and his family. Former North Korean officials, defectors and experts say it would be hard for anyone outside the regime's leadership to own or freely use boats of this size.

"In winter, they would keep them at the shipyard. When summer came, they would bring them out and move them to Kim Jong Un's villa or towards Kalma, and use them for swimming and recreation," says Ri Jong Ho.

Ri once worked at the Workers' Party's Office 39, which is believed to help raise and manage foreign currency for the leadership.

The wealth of those at the top of the secretive North Korean dictatorship is as difficult to determine as the country's economic data.

The United Nations and others use estimates to rank North Korea as one of the world's poorest countries, with a particularly large military budget that supports a sanctioned nuclear programme.

According to a 2025 UN report, most North Koreans live under "systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations" with total state control, widespread forced labour, and persistent food shortages that leave an estimated 40% of the population undernourished.

Yet the regime has long been associated with luxury.

The cost of the vessels seen in the satellite images is unknown, but similar luxury yachts range from tens of millions to more than $100m (£75m). Kim's much smaller, 29-metre Princess yacht was previously estimated to be worth about $7m.

Although vessel locations alone cannot prove where the family is, their movements - which coincide with gaps in Kim's public appearances - suggest activities that would otherwise stay out of sight.

Wonsan is where Kim Jong Un spent part of his childhood with his mother, according to biographers and intelligence reports, and one expert told the BBC the city has been linked to the family since his father Kim Jong Il's rule.

A defector who spent 13 years guarding residences used by then leader Kim Jong Il - from the 1990s into the early 2000s - told the BBC that the villas around Wonsan served as an elite retreat. He remembers seeing dozens of children and teenagers waterskiing there in summer.

North Korean state media rarely reports that Kim is on holiday, instead presenting such trips as official inspections or guidance. But defectors interviewed by the BBC seemed to know the family spent holidays in Wonsan, indicating that at least some North Koreans were aware of it.

State media also says Wonsan has high-rise hotels, restaurants, shops, sports facilities and water parks, and can host nearly 20,000 visitors.

State media and Russian outlets have published photos of small groups of Russian tourists visiting the Wonsan Kalma resort, which opened in July 2025. Although it was built to attract foreign visitors, the resort is also open to local tourists.

North Korean tourists on a beach in Kalma

A South Korean news report, citing an unnamed source, says some locals were offered four-night tour packages for about $100, a significant amount for most North Koreans. The country's per capita GDP - around $667 in 2024, according to the UN - is only a fraction of South Korea's $36,227.

For most North Koreans, holidays are beyond reach. And although a growing middle class exists, they may not have much leisure time.

Defectors told the BBC that workers, office employees and cooperative farmers are legally entitled to 14 days of annual leave, but this is rarely observed.

Taking several days off in a row to travel is unusual. People usually take weekend trips or travel during national holidays rather than during designated "summer holidays".

Even when leave is approved, travel is restricted, with official permission needed to go outside one's city or county. Being able to move freely is sometimes as much of a luxury as the holiday itself.

Ordinary North Koreans struggle to earn a decent living

The BBC tracked four large vessels around Wonsan, measuring about 50m, 55m, 60m and 80m. All four repeatedly appeared around Kim's Wonsan villa this year.

The largest vessel showed the clearest movement, shifting from the dock to waters off the Kalma Peninsula, where it has remained since July.

Two of the other vessels - 50m and 55m - were repeatedly seen until the end of August around Tae and Sin islands, near Wonsan.

Satellite images also showed four smaller boats beside the 50m vessel.

The 50m vessel was seen in waters near Tae island on 4 July 2026.

Satellite imagery expert Jeong Seong-hak said the smaller boats transported people, fuel and supplies to the larger vessel, adding that small islands like Tae and Sin provided "secluded maritime retreats where privacy can be maintained away from public view".

The 60m vessel was repeatedly seen near Kim's Wonsan villa until as recently as last week.

Although North Korea has never publicly revealed the vessels' official ownership, BBC analysis of historical satellite imagery found a large vessel with the same distinctive features in Wonsan in 2002, when Kim Jong Il ruled North Korea.

Former NBA star Dennis Rodman, who visited North Korea in 2013, told The Sun that he spent much of his seven-day trip with Kim Jong Un around Wonsan, where they went jet-skiing and horse riding.

He also described a 60m vessel they used as a mix between a ferry and a Disney boat. It is unclear whether this is the same 60m boat shown in the satellite images above.

For most North Koreans, the lives of the Kims and others who support the regime would seem not only lavish but unimaginable. This is especially true because state propaganda is devoted to portraying the "supreme leader" as a selfless man who always puts the nation first.

"Kim Jong Un is supposed to be a 'leader of the people'," Ri Jong Ho says, "yet he has four luxury vessels like these while ordinary people are struggling just to get one meal a day."