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North Korea

Background: Following World War II, Korea was split into a northern, communist half and a southern, Western-oriented half. KIM Chong-il has ruled North Korea since his father and the country’s founder, president KIM Il-song, died in 1994. After decades of mismanagement, the North relies heavily on international food aid to feed its population, while continuing to expend resources to maintain an army of about 1 million. North Korea’s long-range missile development and research into nuclear and chemical weapons are of major concern to the international community.
Government type: authoritarian socialist; one-man dictatorship
Capital: P’yongyang
Currency: 1 North Korean won (Wn) = 100 chon

Geography of North Korea

Location: Eastern Asia, northern half of the Korean Peninsula bordering the Korea Bay and the Sea of Japan, between China and South Korea
Geographic coordinates: 40 00 N, 127 00 E
Area:
total: 120,540 sq km
land: 120,410 sq km
water: 130 sq km
Land boundaries:
total: 1,673 km
border countries: China 1,416 km, South Korea 238 km, Russia 19 km
Coastline: 2,495 km
Maritime claims:
territorial sea: 12 nm
exclusive economic zone: 200 nm
note: military boundary line 50 nm in the Sea of Japan and the exclusive economic zone limit in the Yellow Sea where all foreign vessels and aircraft without permission are banned
Climate: temperate with rainfall concentrated in summer
Terrain: mostly hills and mountains separated by deep, narrow valleys; coastal plains wide in west, discontinuous in east
Elevation extremes:
lowest point: Sea of Japan 0 m
highest point: Paektu-san 2,744 m
Natural resources: coal, lead, tungsten, zinc, graphite, magnesite, iron ore, copper, gold, pyrites, salt, fluorspar, hydropower
Land use:
arable land: 14%
permanent crops: 2%
permanent pastures: 0%
forests and woodland: 61%
other: 23% (1993 est.)
Irrigated land: 14,600 sq km (1993 est.)
Natural hazards: late spring droughts often followed by severe flooding; occasional typhoons during the early fall
Environment – current issues: water pollution; inadequate supplies of potable water; water-borne disease; deforestation; soil erosion and degradation
Environment – international agreements:
party to:  Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Environmental Modification, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution
signed, but not ratified: Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Law of the Sea
Geography – note: strategic location bordering China, South Korea, and Russia; mountainous interior is isolated and sparsely populated

People of North Korea

Population: 22,912,177 (July 2005 est.)
Age structure:
0-14 years:  25.52%
15-64 years:  67.63%
65 years and over:  6.85%
Population growth rate: 1.22% 
Birth rate: 19.1 births/1,000 population 
Death rate: 6.92 deaths/1,000 population 
Net migration rate: 0 migrant(s)/1,000 population 
Infant mortality rate: 23.55 deaths/1,000 live births 
Life expectancy at birth:
total population:  71.02 years
male:  68.04 years
female:  74.15 years 
Total fertility rate: 2.26 children born/woman 
Nationality:
noun: Korean(s)
adjective: Korean
Ethnic groups: racially homogeneous; there is a small Chinese community and a few ethnic Japanese
Religions: traditionally Buddhist and Confucianist, some Christian and syncretic Chondogyo (Religion of the Heavenly Way)
note: autonomous religious activities now almost nonexistent; government-sponsored religious groups exist to provide illusion of religious freedom
Languages: Korean
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write Korean
total population: 99%
male: 99%
female: 99% (1990 est.)

History of North Korea

The Korean Peninsula was first populated by peoples of a Tungusic branch of the Ural-Altaic language family who migrated from the northwestern regions of Asia. Some of these peoples also populated parts of northeast China (Manchuria); Koreans and Manchurians still show physical similarities.

Koreans are racially and linguistically homogeneous. Although there are no indigenous minorities in North Korea, there is a small Chinese community (about 50,000) and some 1,800 Japanese wives who accompanied the roughly 93,000 Koreans returning to the North from Japan during 1959-62.

Korean is a Ural-Altaic language and is related to Japanese and remotely related to Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, and Mongolian. Although dialects exist, the Korean spoken throughout the peninsula is mutually comprehensible. In North Korea, the Korean alphabet (hangul) is used exclusively, unlike in South Korea, where a combination of hangul and Chinese characters is used as the written language.

Korea’s traditional religions are Buddhism and Shamanism. Christian missionaries arrived as early as the 16th century, but it was not until the 19th century that they founded schools, hospitals, and other modern institutions throughout Korea. Major centers of 19th-century missionary activity included Seoul and Pyongyang, and there was a relatively large Christian population in the north before 1945. Although religious groups exist in North Korea, most available evidence suggests that the government severely restricts religious activity.

According to legend, the god-king Tangun founded the Korean nation in 2333 BC. By the first century AD, the Korean Peninsula was divided into the kingdoms of Shilla, Koguryo, and Paekche. In 668 AD, the Shilla kingdom unified the peninsula. The Koryo dynasty–from which Portuguese missionaries in the 16th century derived the Western name “Korea”–succeeded the Shilla kingdom in 935. The Choson dynasty, ruled by members of the Yi clan, supplanted Koryo in 1392 and lasted until the Japanese annexed Korea in 1910.

Throughout most of its history, Korea has been invaded, influenced, and fought over by its larger neighbors. Korea was under Mongolian occupation from 1231 until the early 14th century and was plundered by Japanese pirates in 1359 and 1361. The unifier of Japan, Hideyoshi, launched major invasions of Korea in 1592 and 1597. When Western powers focused “gunboat” diplomacy on Korea in the mid-19th century, Korea’s rulers adopted a closed-door policy, earning Korea the title of “Hermit Kingdom.”

Though the Choson dynasty paid tribute to the Chinese court and recognized China’s hegemony in East Asia, Korea was independent until the late 19th century. At that time, China sought to block growing Japanese influence on the Korean Peninsula and Russian pressure for commercial gains there. This competition produced the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. Japan emerged victorious from both wars and in 1910 annexed Korea as part of the growing Japanese empire.

Japanese colonial administration was characterized by tight control from Tokyo and ruthless efforts to supplant Korean language and culture. Organized Korean resistance during the colonial era–such as the March 1, 1919, Independence Movement–was unsuccessful, and Japan remained firmly in control until the end of World War II in 1945.

Japan surrendered in August 1945, and Korea was liberated. However, the unexpectedly early surrender of Japan led to the immediate division of Korea into two occupation zones, with the U.S. administering the southern half of the peninsula and the U.S.S.R taking over the area to the north of the 38th parallel. This division was meant to be temporary and to facilitate the Japanese surrender until the U.S., U.K., Soviet Union, and China could arrange a trusteeship administration.

At a meeting in Cairo, it was agreed that Korea would be free “in due course;” at a later meeting in Yalta, it was agreed to establish a four-power trusteeship over Korea. In December 1945, a conference convened in Moscow to discuss the future of Korea. A 5-year trusteeship was discussed, and a joint Soviet-American commission was established. The commission met intermittently in Seoul but deadlocked over the issue of establishing a national government. In September 1947, with no solution in sight, the United States submitted the Korean question to the UN General Assembly.

Initial hopes for a unified, independent Korea quickly evaporated as the politics of the Cold War and domestic opposition to the trusteeship plan resulted in the 1948 establishment of two separate nations with diametrically opposed political, economic, and social systems and the outbreak of war in 1950 (see, under Foreign Relations, Korean war of 1950-53).

North Korea Economy

Economy – overview: North Korea, one of the world’s most centrally planned and isolated economies, faces desperate economic conditions. Industrial capital stock is nearly beyond repair as a result of years of underinvestment and spare parts shortages. The nation faces its seventh year of food shortages because of weather-related problems, including major drought in 2000, and chronic shortages of fertilizer and fuel. Massive international food aid deliveries have allowed the regime to escape the major consequence of spreading economic failure, such as mass starvation, but the population remains vulnerable to prolonged malnutrition and deteriorating living conditions. Large-scale military spending eats up resources needed for expanding investment and consumption goods. In 2000, the regime placed emphasis on expanding foreign trade links, embracing modern technology, and attracting foreign investment, but in no way at the expense of relinquishing central control over key national assets or undergoing market-oriented reforms.

GDP: purchasing power parity – $22 billion (2000 est.)
GDP – real growth rate: -3% (2000 est.)
GDP – per capita: purchasing power parity – $1,000 (2000 est.)
GDP – composition by sector:
agriculture: 30%
industry: 42%
services: 28% (1999 est.)
Labor force: 9.6 million
Labor force – by occupation: agricultural 36%, nonagricultural 64%
Industries: military products; machine building, electric power, chemicals; mining (coal, iron ore, magnesite, graphite, copper, zinc, lead, and precious metals), metallurgy; textiles, food processing; tourism
Electricity – production: 28.6 billion kWh (1999)
Electricity – production by source:
fossil fuel:  34.62%
hydro:  65.38%
nuclear:  0%
other:  0% (1999)
Agriculture – products: rice, corn, potatoes, soybeans, pulses; cattle, pigs, pork, eggs
Exports: $520 million (f.o.b., 1999 est.)
Exports – commodities: minerals, metallurgical products, manufactures (including armaments); agricultural and fishery products
Exports – partners: Japan 28%, South Korea 21%, China 5%, Germany 4%, Russia 1% (1995)
Imports: $960 million (c.i.f., 1999 est.)
Imports – commodities: petroleum, coking coal, machinery and equipment; consumer goods, grain
Imports – partners: China 33%, Japan 17%, Russia 5%, South Korea 4%, Germany 3% (1995)
Debt – external: $12 billion (1996 est.)
Economic aid – recipient: an estimated $200 million to $300 million in humanitarian aid from US, South Korea, Japan, and EU in 1997 plus much additional aid from the UN and non-governmental organizations; substantial continuing humanitarian aid, 1998-2000.
Currency: North Korean won (KPW)

Map of North Korea