It boasts a large airstrip, a 21-storey hotel nestled in a bay, shops, a conference centre, wedding planner, six-star resort, bustling marina and, later this year, a new yacht club and links golf course.
North Korea's lack of large airstrips and aircraft meant it conducted only minimal air resupply, mostly critical items being imported from China.
Pre-invasion plans called for the construction of three large airstrips within forty-five days of 15 September, with the first to be operational immediately after the landing.
This strategy, designated Operation Matterhorn, involved the construction of large airstrips near Chengdu in inland China which would be used to refuel B-29s traveling from bases in Bengal en route to targets in Japan.
This strategy, which was designated Operation Matterhorn, required the construction of large airstrips near Chengdu in inland China which would be supplied by Allied cargo aircraft and be used to refuel B-29s traveling from bases in Bengal en route to bombing targets in Japan.
That idea took greater shape on Thursday morning, when a black Challenger jet landed at Laconia Airport, the largest airstrip in the area, on the lake's southern shore.
An intelligence team from the United States visited a large asphalt airstrip in the Kurdish-controlled zone of northern Iraq today, even as Kurdish laborers and soldiers were preparing the strip for aircraft and building infantry bunkers around it.
And unlike Antarctica, the Canadian site is accessible via road and has an all-weather airstrip large enough for jet aircraft.
The local private airstrip is large enough for small jets, but the nearest commercial airport is in Louisville.
As Canadian soldiers hoist duffel bags from troop transports at a gravel airstrip here, a large red maple leaf signboard greets the new arrivals with the words, in English and French, "Proudly Canadian".
Today at Kitty Hawk there are markers of that historic flight: the 60-foot-tall granite hilltop Wright Brothers National Memorial, the original landing field on Milepost 8 at Kill Devil Hills (though covered by grass, it is still a working airstrip) and the large stone markers pointing out where the Wrights' first few flights landed.
