As a precaution against the transmission of the Covid-19 virus, North Korea took the drastic step of shutting its border with China on January 21, 2020.¹ Since then, bilateral trade reportedly decreased by more than 80 percent in 2020. North Korea’s exports to China fell by more than 77 percent, while its imports fell by 80 percent.² The border shutdown, now well over one year, has already had significant impacts on the North Korean economy. In 2020 alone, North Korea’s economy is estimated to have contracted by up to 10 percent, marking North Korea’s largest annual slide since the famine in 1992, when the economy shrank by 7.1 percent.³ Should it continue through the end of this year, the impact on the North Korean people and economy could be unprecedented. To better understand the situation on the ground, CSIS Beyond Parallel conducted a satellite imagery study of rail and vehicular traffic at the Dandong-Sinuiju ports of entry, which are often cited as important indicators of the health of Chinese-North Korean political relations and the economic cooperation between the two nations.