The Rungrado 1st of may stadium is located in Rungra Island, Pyeong yang, North Korea and is the largest stadium in the world.
The national stadium of north Korea was built as a response to Seoul’s Olympic stadium as part of rivalry between the two countries. The construction took place for 2.5 years from 1986-1989, at the time of its construction it was the biggest stadium ever built in Asia. It was inaugurated on may day, 1st of may, 1989 preceding the 13th world festival of youth and students.
The stadium happens to be on an island with only two roads that run in and out of it. There have been some sinister events to take place in the stadium, most notable, a group of army generals were burned alive inside the stadium after plotting assassination attempt on the then dictator, Kim Jong-il.
The first big event held in the stadium was in 1995 with the “Collision in Korea” wrestling event, which at the was the largest pay per view wrestling event jointly held by Japan Pro-wrestling and world championship wrestling, which later merged into WWE, it had a record attendance of about 190,000.
The most famous events to happen at the May Day stadium are the Mass games, with the Arirang festival between 2002 to 2013. In 2007, the Arirang mass games made it into the Guinness book of world records when 100,090 participants took part in the event.
The most spectacular element of the stadium is its roof, it covers 94,000 sqm, 11,000 of steel supports the outer sheets forming 16 petal-shaped segments, they span 60 meters inside the stadium and 40 meters out, the entire structure is 60m high.
The unique roof was noticed and awarded first prize during the 1988 international exhibition of invention of Geneva. With total floor space of 207,000 sqm, the main pitch has an area of 22,500 sqm, the stadium provides numerous facilities including running tracks, swimming pools and indoor halls where sportsmen prepare during the year.
The problem with the stadium is that the stadium isn’t used for large football and athletic events as much as it should be and that its mainly used for military parades and mass pageants.
