The surrounding areas in China to the west are populated, but relative to other parts it's not much population. You gotta go awhile to hit big cities: mudanjia

The surrounding areas in China to the west are populated, but relative to other parts it's not much population. You gotta go awhile to hit big cities: mudanjiang is tiny, yanbian is a weird place only growing because of the military presence near NK, and jilin/changchun are only big because of the relatively warm river. It's really damn cold up there otherwise (source: s/o is from there, we go back a lot). It's like wondering why MN/ND aren't more populated, but then you go there for a winter and get stuck in a -40F wind chill and literally die, and can't wonder about the population any more on account of being dead (source: my family is from MN and ND).