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Travel to North Korea — Unbiased reviews
and great deals from TripAdvisorKorea, North
| Democratic People's Republic of Korea National name: Choson Minjujuui Inmin
Konghwaguk Head of State: Kim Jong
II (1994) Prime Minister: Kim
Yong-Il (2007)
Current government officials
Land area: 46,490 sq mi (120,409 sq km);
total area: 46,540 sq mi (120,540 sq km) Population (2007 est.): 23,301,725 (growth
rate: 0.8%); birth rate: 15.1/1000; infant mortality rate: 22.6/1000;
life expectancy: 71.9; density per sq mi: 501
Capital and largest city (2003):
Pyongyang, 3,222,000 (metro. area),
2,767,900 Monetary unit: won
Language:
Korean
Ethnicity/race:
racially homogeneous; small Chinese community, a
few ethnic Japanese
Religions:
Buddhism and Confucianism; religious activities
almost nonexistent Literacy rate:
99% (1990 est.) Economic summary:
GDP/PPP (2007 est.): $40 billion note: North Korea does not
publish any reliable National Income Accounts data; the datum shown
here is derived from purchasing power parity (PPP) GDP estimates for
North Korea that were made by Angus MADDISON in a study conducted for
the OECD; his figure for 1999 was extrapolated to 2007 using estimated
real growth rates for North Korea's GDP and an inflation factor based
on the US GDP deflator; the result was rounded to the nearest $10
billion; per capita $1,900. Real growth rate: -1.1%.
Inflation: n.a. Unemployment: n.a. Arable land:
22.4% (2005). Agriculture: rice, corn, potatoes, soybeans,
pulses; cattle, pigs, pork, eggs. Labor force: 9.6 million;
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. Natural
resources: coal, lead, tungsten, zinc, graphite, magnesite, iron
ore, copper, gold, pyrites, salt, fluorspar, hydropower.
Exports: $1.466 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.): minerals,
metallurgical products, manufactures (including armaments), textiles,
fishery products. Imports: $2.879 billion c.i.f. (2006 est.):
petroleum, coking coal, machinery and equipment; textiles, grain.
Major trading partners: China, South Korea, Japan, Thailand
(2004). Communications: Telephones:
main lines in use: 980,000 (2003); mobile cellular: n.a. Radio
broadcast stations: AM 17, FM 14, shortwave 14 (2006).
Radios: 3.36 million (1997). Television broadcast
stations: 38 (1999). Televisions: 1.2 million (1997).
Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 1 (2000). Internet
users: n.a. Transportation:
Railways: total: 5,235 km (2006). Highways: total: 25,554
km; paved: 724 km; unpaved: 24,830 km (2006). Waterways: 2,253
km; mostly navigable by small craft only. Ports and harbors:
Ch'ongjin, Haeju, Hungnam (Hamhung), Kimch'aek, Kosong, Najin, Namp'o,
Sinuiju, Songnim, Sonbong (formerly Unggi), Ungsang, Wonsan.
Airports: 77 (2007). International
disputes: with China, certain islands in Yalu and Tumen rivers are
in uncontested dispute; a section of boundary around Paektu-san
(mountain) is indefinite; China objects to illegal migration of North
Koreans into northern China; Military Demarcation Line within the 4-km
wide Demilitarized Zone has separated North from South Korea since
1953.
Major sources and definitions
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Geography
Korea is a 600-mile (966-km) peninsula jutting out from Manchuria and
China (and a small portion of the USSR). North Korea occupies an
area—slightly smaller than Pennsylvania—north of the 38th
parallel.
The country is almost completely covered by a series of north-south
mountain ranges separated by narrow valleys. The Yalu River forms part of
the northern border with Manchuria.
Government
Authoritarian socialist; one-man dictatorship.
History
The ancient history of the Korean peninsula can be traced to the
Neolithic Age, when Turkic-Manchurian-Mongol peoples migrated into the
region from China. The first agriculturally based settlements appeared
around 6000 B.C. Some of the larger communities
of this era were established along the Han-gang River near modern-day
Seoul, others near Pyongyang and Pusan. According to ancient lore, Korea's
earliest civilization, known as Choson, was founded in 2333 B.C. by Tan-gun.
In the 17th century, Korea became a vassal state of China and was cut
off from outside contact until the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895.
Following Japan's victory, Korea was granted independence. By 1910, Korea
had been annexed by Japan, which developed the country but never won over
the Korean nationalists, who continued to agitate for independence.
After Japan's surrender at the conclusion of World War II, the Korean
peninsula was partitioned into two occupation zones, divided at the 38th
parallel. The USSR controlled the north, with the U.S. taking charge of
the south. In 1948, the division was made permanent with the establishment
of the separate regimes of North and South Korea. The Democratic People's
Republic of Korea (North Korea) was established on May 1, 1948, with Kim
Il Sung as president.
Hoping to unify the Koreas under a single Communist government, the
North launched a surprise invasion of South Korea on June 25, 1950. In the
following days, the UN Security Council condemned the attack and demanded
an immediate withdrawal.
President Harry S. Truman ordered U.S. air and naval units into action
to enforce the UN order. The British government followed suit, and soon a
UN multinational command was set up to aid the South Koreans.
The North Korean invaders swiftly seized Seoul and surrounded the
allied forces in the peninsula's southeast corner near Pusan. In a
desperate bid to reverse the military situation, UN Commander Gen. Douglas
MacArthur ordered an amphibious landing at Inchon on Sept. 15 and routed
the North Korean army. MacArthur's forces pushed north across the 38th
parallel, approaching the Yalu River.
Prompted by this successful counteroffensive, Communist China entered
the war, forcing the UN troops into a headlong retreat. Seoul was lost
again, then regained. Ultimately, the war stabilized near the 38th
parallel but dragged on for two years while negotiations took place. An
armistice was agreed to on July 27, 1953.
Kim Il Sung's death on July 8, 1994, introduced a period of
uncertainty, as his son, Kim Jong Il, assumed the leadership mantle.
Negotiations over the country's suspected possession of atomic weapons
dragged on, but an agreement was reached in June 1995 that included a
provision for providing the North with a South Korean nuclear reactor.
The nuclear standoffs that characterized the mid-1990s were
overshadowed when famine struck the nation's 24 million inhabitants in
1998 and 1999. Two years of floods had been followed by severe droughts in
1997 and 1998, causing devastating crop failures. Because of a lack of
fuel and machinery parts, and weather conditions that encouraged
parasites, only 10% of North Korea's rice fields could be worked. The
staggering food crisis necessitated foreign aid. In the fall of 1999, the
severe famine, which claimed an estimated 2 million to 3 million lives,
had begun to wane. Malnutrition and hunger, however, continued to plague
North Korea into the mid-2000s. Thousands have attempted to flee to China
or South Korea, and only few have evaded capture. Those who do not escape
face torture or execution.
North Korea, one of the world's most secretive societies, has been
accused of egregious human-rights violations, including summary
executions, torture, inhumane conditions in prison camps, which hold up to
200,000 prisoners, and denial of freedom of expression and movement.
Access to the country is strictly limited and North Korea's domestic media
is tightly controlled, making it difficult to substantiate the
accusations. Some nongovernmental organizations, however, such as Human
Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have spoken to North Korean
refugees who have experienced such persecution.
In Sept. 1998, North Korea launched a test missile over Japan, claiming
it was simply a scientific satellite, raising suspicions regarding North
Korea's nuclear intentions. In 1999, North Korea agreed to allow the
United States to conduct ongoing inspections of a suspected nuclear
development site, Kumchangri. In exchange, the U.S. would increase food
aid and initiate a program for bringing potato production to the
country.
Tension with South Korea eased dramatically in June 2000, when South
Korea's president, Kim Dae Jung, met with North Korea's President Kim Jong
Il in Pyongyang. The summit marked the first-ever meeting of the two
countries' leaders. But efforts toward reconciliation fizzled
thereafter.
In Jan. 2002, President Bush described North Korea as part of an
“axis of evil.” Such open hostility marked a dramatic shift in
U.S. policy toward North Korea from the Clinton administration's policy of
engagement.
North Korea stunned the world in late 2002 with two admissions. In
September, the government acknowledged that it had kidnapped about a dozen
Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s for the purposes of training North Korean
spies. In October, confronted with U.S. intelligence, North Korea admitted
that it had violated a 1994 agreement freezing its nuclear-weapons program
and had in fact been developing nuclear bombs. Since 2002, North Korea has
vacillated between affirming and denying that it already has nuclear
weapons.
In late December 2002, North Korea expelled UN weapons inspectors from
the country, and in January 2003 it announced it was officially
withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In July,
North Korean officials reported that the country had reprocessed enough
plutonium to build six nuclear bombs. Kim has regularly used threats and
hostile acts to try to wring aid from the international community, but it
was difficult to decipher how he expected to accomplish his
aims—economic aid and a safeguard against U.S. attack—through
such brinkmanship. Refusing to bow to North Korea's demands, the United
States informed the nation's diplomats that it would not begin to
negotiate until North Korea first dismantled its nuclear program. China
took on the role of mediator between North Korea and the U.S., urging less
inflexibility on both sides. Meetings between officials from the U.S.,
North Korea, China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan in 2003, 2004, and 2005
ended in deadlock.
In July 2006, North Korea launched seven missiles—the long-range
Taepodong-2 missile (which failed) and six medium-range ones—roiling
its neighbors and much of the rest of the world. It was North Korea's
first major weapons test in eight years. North Korea again sparked
international outrage in October, when it tested a nuclear weapon.
President Bush called the test a “threat to international peace and
security” and called for sanctions against North Korea.
A breakthrough was finally reached in February 2007, when North Korea
agreed to dismantle its nuclear facilities and allow international
inspectors to enter the country in exchange for about $400 million in oil
and aid. In July, the country followed up on the February agreement,
shutting down its weapons-making nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. Inspectors
from the International Atomic Energy Agency verified the move. North Korea
went a step further in October, announcing it would disable its nuclear
facilities and disclose to international monitors an accounting of all of
its nuclear programs by the end of 2007. It failed, however, to make the
disclosure.
In April 2007, parliament fired Prime Minister Hong Song Nam and named
former army and navy minister Kim Yong-Il as his successor.
For the first time in 56 years, trains passed between North and South
Korea in May 2007. While the event was mostly symbolic, it was considered
an important step toward reconciliation. South Korea hopes that eventually
a trans-Korean railroad will provide easier access to other parts of Asia.
Given North Korea's failing infrastructure, such a railroad, however, is
years away from becoming a reality.
In October 2007, Kim Jong Il and South Korean president Roh Moo Hyun
met for their second ever inter-Korean summit. The leaders forged a deal
to work together on several economic projects and agreed to move toward
signing a treaty that would formally end the Korean War.
The New York Philharmonic played a concert in Pyongyang in February
2008. It was the first time an American cultural group performed in the
country and the largest American delegation to visit North Korea since the
Korean War. The orchestra played pieces by Dvorak, Gershwin, and Wagner,
as well as the "Star-Spangled Banner" and a traditional Korean folk
song.
Hopes for an eventual denuclearized North Korea were raised again in
May 2008, when the country turned over to U.S. officials about 18,000
pages of documents detailing its efforts in 1990, 2003, and 2005 to
reprocess plutonium for nuclear weapons. It did not, however, hand over
information on its uranium program and its efforts to sell nuclear
material.
See also Encyclopedia: Korea.
U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
North Korea
Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson
Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
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