North Korea

I INTRODUCTION

North Korea, officially Democratic People's Republic of Korea, country in northeastern Asia that occupies the northern portion of the Korea Peninsula. North Korea is bounded on the north by China, on the northeast by Russia, on the east by the East Sea (Sea of Japan), on the south by South Korea, and on the west by the Yellow Sea. It has an area of 120,538 sq km (46,540 sq mi). The state of North Korea was established in 1948 as a result of the Soviet military occupation of the northern portion of the peninsula after World War II. The capital and largest city of North Korea is P'y?ngyang.

II LAND AND RESOURCES

North Korea is extremely mountainous and marked by deep, narrow valleys. A complex system of ranges and spurs extends across the country in a generally northeastern to southwestern direction. The most prominent mountain range is the Nangnim-sanmaek, in the north central region. Mount Paektu (2,744 m/9,003 ft), on the Chinese border, is the highest peak. Lowland plains comprise only about one-fifth of the total area and are largely confined to the country's western coast and to the several broad river valleys of the west. Fertile alluvial soils are found in these river valleys. Most of the soils in the mountainous regions lack organic material and are relatively infertile. Nearly all the major rivers rise in the mountains and flow west to the Yellow Sea. The longest river, the Yalu (Amnok), forms part of the border with China. Other streams include the Taedong, Ch'?ng-ch'?n, and Chaery?ng rivers. Of the major rivers only the Tumen flows to the eastern coast to empty into the East Sea.

A Climate

North Korea has a continental climate, with hot summers and cold winters. The average July temperature at P'y?ngyang is 24C (75F). Winter temperatures at W?nsan in the south average -4C (25F) but are considerably lower in the north. Annual precipitation in most parts of the country is about 1,000 mm (about 40 in) and is concentrated in the summer months.

B Vegetation and Animal Life

Extensive coniferous forests are found in the country's mountainous interior. Predominant species include spruce, pine, larch, fir, and cedar. The lowland areas of the west have been deforested and are under cultivation. Because of deforestation, large indigenous mammals of North Korea, which include leopards, tigers, deer, bears, and wolves, are becoming increasingly rare, and are confined to remote forested regions. Birdlife includes crane, heron, eagle, and snipe.

C Mineral Resources

North Korea is one of the richer nations in Asia in terms of mineral resources. Major reserves are found of coal, iron ore, tungsten, magnesite, and graphite. Among the other minerals present are gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, and molybdenum.

III POPULATION

North Korea is one of the most ethnically homogeneous countries in the world, with no racial or linguistic minorities other than a small resident foreign (mainly Chinese) population. Koreans are believed to have descended from people who began to migrate to the Korea Peninsula from the northeastern part of the Asian mainland as early as 5000 bc.

A Population Characteristics

The population (2005 estimate) of North Korea is 22,912,177. The average population density is 190 persons per sq km (493 per sq mi). The population, however, is very unevenly distributed and is largely concentrated in the lowland plains of the west. Urbanization of the North Korean population has progressed rapidly since the 1950s; 61 percent of the total population of North Korea is now classified as urban.

B Principal Cities

P'y?ngyang, the capital, is North Korea's largest city. Other major cities include Ch'?ngjin, Namp'o, Sin?iju, W?nsan, and Kaes?ng.

C Language and Religion

North Korea's national language is Korean, which is written in a phonetic script known as Chos?n'g?l (called Hangeul in South Korea).

Religious freedom is guaranteed by the North Korean constitution, but in practice religious activity is discouraged, and about two-thirds of the people are nonreligious. Perhaps the most prominent religious tradition belongs to the indigenous Ch'?ndogyo (“Religion of the Heavenly Way”), which combines elements of Confucianism and Daoism (Taoism).

IV EDUCATION AND CULTURAL ACTIVITY

Education and culture in North Korea are considered instruments by which the Communist government may indoctrinate and foster its ideology.

A Education

Education is free and compulsory in North Korea for ten years. In the late 1980s, some 1.5 million pupils were enrolled annually in elementary schools, and another 2.8 million students attended vocational and secondary schools. The principal institution of higher education is Kim Il Sung University (founded in 1946) in P'y?ngyang. Total enrollment in some 280 institutions of higher education exceeds 300,000. The literacy rate is estimated at about 95 percent.

B Cultural Life and Institutions

Cultural activity is aided and encouraged by the government. Historical museums and libraries are located in many of the larger counties. The government has also formed national symphony, theater, and dance companies.

C Communications

The government-run Korean Central News Agency is the principal distributing source of news in North Korea; several daily newspapers are published. Radio broadcasting is under the auspices of the Korean Central Broadcasting Committee. Television broadcasting was instituted in 1969.

V GOVERNMENT

North Korea has a strongly centralized Communist government. The government's structure is set forth in the constitution promulgated in 1972, which replaced that of 1948. The constitution was revised in 1992 and 1998.

A Executive

Before Kim Il Sung's death in 1994, executive power in North Korea was vested in a president, who was head of state, and a premier, who was technically head of government. The president was elected by the Supreme People's Assembly for a four-year term. The president in turn appointed the members of the Central People's Committee, the government's highest policymaking body. The post of president has been vacant since the death of Kim Il Sung in 1994. Kim Il Sung had designated his son, Kim Jong Il, as his successor; however, Kim Jong Il did not assume the presidency. Under a 1998 constitutional amendment, the chair of the National Defense Commission, a post held by Kim Jong Il, was recognized as North Korea's “highest office.”

B Legislature

The legislature, which in theory is the supreme government organ, is the unicameral Supreme People's Assembly. Its 687 members are elected by direct vote for four-year terms. The legislature generally meets only several times a year; its day-to-day duties are performed by the standing committee of the assembly.

C Judiciary

The judicial system of North Korea consists of the central court and the provincial and people's courts. The central court is the state's highest judiciary authority; its judges are appointed to four-year terms by the standing committee.

D Local Government

North Korea is divided into nine provinces, three special cities, and one special district. Provinces are further subdivided into counties and districts. Each local administrative unit has an elected people's assembly.

E Political Parties

The dominant political party, and the actual source of political power, is the Korean Workers' Party (1945). Two smaller parties join with the Korean Workers' Party in the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland.

F Social Services

All North Korean citizens are entitled to disability benefits and retirement allowances. Medical care is free and available at people's clinics throughout the country.

G Defense

The Korean Workers' Party maintains political control of the military. In 2003 the total military personnel was about 1,106,000, distributed as follows: army, 950,000; navy, 46,000; and air force, 110,000.

VI ECONOMY

The government of North Korea maintains a highly centralized, or state-controlled, economy. After the establishment of the Democratic People's Republic in 1948, all industry was nationalized and agriculture was collectivized. Government economic policy emphasized a doctrine of self-reliance and downgraded the role of foreign trade. Economic plans gave emphasis to the development of heavy industry and the mechanization of agriculture. In the early 2000s North Korea faced severe economic problems, following more than a decade of economic decline.

A Labor

In 2003 the estimated total workforce of North Korea was 11.6 million, with 38 percent of the workforce engaged in agriculture. The major industrial and technical trade unions are affiliated with the General Federation of Trade Unions; also important is the Korean Agricultural Working People's Union. Professional workers, including artists, writers, lawyers, and scientists, have their own trade organizations.

B Agriculture

Large-scale mechanization, irrigation, and land reclamation have increased crop yields. The principal crops (with their yields in 2004) include rice (2.4 million metric tons), corn (1.7 million), and potatoes (2.1 million). Other important crops are millet, barley, wheat, vegetables, apples, sweet potatoes, and soybeans. Livestock number about 3.2 million pigs, 566,000 cattle, 171,000 sheep, and 25 million poultry.

C Forestry and Fishing

Production of round wood stood at 7.2 million cubic meters (254 million cubic feet) in 2003. North Korea has a modern fishing fleet; in 2001 the catch was 263,700 metric tons, largely anchovy, tuna, mackerel, and seaweeds.

D Mining

Mining is an important sector of the North Korean economy, and efforts are being made to develop new deposits. The focus has been on iron ore and coal, which had, in 2003, outputs of 1.3 million and 33.2 million metric tons, respectively. Other important minerals include tungsten, magnesite, zinc, copper, lead, silver, and gold.

E Manufacturing

Metallurgical industries and the manufacture of heavy machinery represent a major share of North Korea's national income. Other manufactures include trucks, diesel locomotives, heavy construction equipment, cement, synthetic fibers, fertilizers, and refined copper, lead, zinc, and aluminum.

F Energy

North Korea is well endowed with hydroelectricity resources, which account for 72 percent of the electrical output. In 2002 electricity production was 33.6 billion kilowatt-hours.

G Transportation

The railroad system of North Korea is electrified along most of its 8,530 km (5,300 mi) of track. It has direct links to China and Russia. There are 31,200 km (19,387 mi) of roads, of which only 6 percent are paved. The Taedong River is important to internal trade; the total length of inland waterways is about 2,250 km (1,400 mi). Major ports include Namp'o and Haeju on the western coast and Ch'?ngjin and W?nsan on the eastern coast.

H Currency and Banking

The unit of currency is the won (2.20 won equals U.S.$1; May, 1998). North Korea has three banks, all state-controlled; the Korean Central Bank is the bank of issue.

I Foreign Trade

The bulk of North Korea's foreign trade through the 1970s was with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), China, and other Communist countries. Since then, however, trade has been diversified to include non-Communist countries, notably Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Australia. Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China, is also an important trading partner. Minerals, metals, rice, and fish constitute the principal exports (worth about $2.4 billion in the late 1980s). Petroleum, coal, chemicals, and machinery are major imports ($3.1 billion).

In 2002 the government of North Korea announced the establishment of a special economic zone in the northwestern city of Sin?iju, near the border with China and linked by rail to Beijing. The zone will operate autonomously with its own legal and economic systems, allowing free-market principles that promote foreign investment and trade. Its creation marked the most significant reversal of economic policy in North Korea since 1948.

VII HISTORY

For the history of the Korea Peninsula before it was partitioned in 1945 into North and South Korea, see Korea. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) was proclaimed in P'y?ngyang on September 9, 1948, but a more significant date of inception would perhaps be August 29, 1946, when North Korea's Communist party, properly known as the Korean Workers' Party (KWP), was inaugurated under the leadership of Kim Tubong and Kim Il Sung.

A Kim Il Sung's Rise to Power

After the establishment of the KWP, Kim Il Sung enjoyed the support of the occupying Soviet forces (until they withdrew in late 1948), and began playing a leading role in Korean affairs north of the 38th parallel. Under the Communist party leadership and before the establishment of the DPRK, key political and economic reforms had already been made: elimination of moderate and right-wing elements, suppression of religious and most other sectarian groups, confiscation of land and wealth formerly belonging to the Japanese or to enemies of the regime, and the initiation of party-directed economic planning and development. Although Kim Il Sung emerged early as the principal leader, others contended for the top position. One of these, Pak Honyong, a Communist from the south, was executed after the Korean War (1950-1953); some believe that Pak was blamed for the loss of the war, the South Koreans having failed to support the north as Pak had supposedly promised. Kim Tubong and other possible rivals were eliminated by the end of the 1950s, leaving Kim Il Sung in undisputed control.

B The Post-Korean War Period

The war caused enormous damage, but KWP discipline and forced-labor policies resulted in considerable recovery and development by 1960. At the same time, the North Korean leadership began to turn away from Soviet tutelage, emphasizing the national character of the Korean revolution. As the quarrel between China and the USSR intensified, North Korea maneuvered for even more independence of action. During the 1960s heavy industrial growth was emphasized, but the production of consumer goods and the general standard of living lagged. Late in the 1960s, North Korea developed an especially aggressive stance toward the south: An assassination team tried and nearly succeeded in killing South Korea's president, Park Chung Hee. In 1968 the Pueblo, a United States intelligence-gathering vessel, was seized by North Korean gunboats and its crew held in extremely severe circumstances for a year. Guerrilla raids were launched on the south, but without much effect. A U.S. reconnaissance plane was shot down in April 1969. These events, rather than weakening the south, stimulated renewed defense measures and were probably counterproductive. They also influenced the formation of a harder political order in the south (see Korea, South).

In the 1970s, secret talks with southern officials led to a joint declaration (July 4, 1972) that both sides would seek to develop a dialogue aimed at unification, but by spring 1973 this effort had dissolved in acrimony. Sporadic discussions on unification were held throughout the 1980s.

At the KWP Congress in 1980, Kim Il Sung's son, Kim Jong Il, was given high ranking in the Politburo and on the Central Committee of the party, placing him in a commanding position to succeed his father. Kim Il Sung was reelected president in May 1990 for a four-year term. In 1991 both North and South Korea joined the United Nations (UN), and the two nations signed accords regarding nuclear weapons and reconciliation.

In 1992 North Korea signed a pact with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to allow the country's nuclear facilities to be inspected. However, in 1993 the North Korean government refused to let inspectors examine sites suspected of nuclear-weapons production and threatened to withdraw from the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which North Korea had signed in 1985. In December 1993 the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) announced that North Korea had most likely built at least one atomic weapon from plutonium extracted from fuel rods at a nuclear power plant.

Throughout the first half of 1994, the North Korean government continued to resist a full IAEA inspection of alleged nuclear-weapon production sites. The crisis was defused in June, however, when former U.S. president Jimmy Carter met with Kim Il Sung in North Korea. The following month Kim died unexpectedly. Nevertheless, the United States and North Korea reached a framework agreement in 1994 in which North Korea agreed to permanently shut down facilities capable of making weapons-grade material and to allow IAEA inspections of its nuclear sites. In return, the United States agreed to assist North Korea in replacing two of its nuclear reactors with modern versions designed to produce less weapons-grade plutonium.

A formal agreement regarding construction of the reactors was signed in 1995. Under the agreement, a U.S.-led international consortium pledged to supervise and finance the project, estimated to cost $4.5 billion. Also under the framework, the United States agreed to finance annual deliveries of heavy fuel oil to North Korea until the new reactors were constructed, as compensation for the loss of energy the reactors had provided.

In April 1996 North Korea announced that it no longer would honor the 1953 armistice that brought an end to the Korean War; in violation of the armistice, North Korea sent heavily armed troops into the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a buffer zone that was created between the two Koreas after the Korean War, for three days. At the request of the United States and South Korea, North Korea agreed to peace talks with South Korea under mediation of the United States and China.

In September 1998 North Korea revised its constitution to recognize the chair of the National Defense Commission, a position held by Kim Jong Il, as the country's top government post. Kim had been the de facto leader of North Korea since the death of his father, Kim Il Sung, in 1994.

Meanwhile, a nationwide food crisis that surfaced in 1995 became a widespread famine by 1996. Factors contributing to the crisis included the withdrawal of food subsidies from Russia and China in the early 1990s, the cumulative effect of government agricultural policies, and a series of severe floods and droughts that damaged agricultural crops. International humanitarian relief agencies responded to the crisis with ongoing food aid and other relief efforts. Nevertheless, it was estimated that between 2 million and 3 million people had died of starvation and famine-related illnesses by 1998. Although the famine peaked in 1997, the food crisis continued into the early 2000s.

C North Korea in the 21st Century

In June 2000 Kim and South Korean president Kim Dae Jung held talks in P'y?ngyang and agreed to promote reconciliation and economic cooperation between the two countries. The landmark event was the first face-to-face meeting between the leaders of North Korea and South Korea since the division of Korea in 1945. The thaw in relations led to the first officially sanctioned temporary reunions of families separated by the Korean War, the start of mail service between the two countries, and the reopening of road and rail links that had been severed by the creation of the DMZ.

In September 2002 Kim Jong Il and Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi signed a joint declaration to begin normalizing relations between their two countries. Koizumi's unprecedented visit to North Korea marked the first diplomatic relations between the two countries since 1948.

In October 2002 United States officials confronted the North Korean government with intelligence evidence showing that North Korea had been secretly pursuing a nuclear-weapons development program, in violation of the 1994 agreement and other international obligations. The United States said North Korea had a covert program to enrich uranium, another way of making a nuclear bomb. North Korean officials reportedly acknowledged the existence of such a program. The United States announced in November that it would stop financing monthly shipments of heavy fuel oil to North Korea, as required under the 1994 agreement. North Korea responded by declaring that the agreement had collapsed.

The standoff escalated in December, when North Korea rejected a demand for new inspections of its nuclear facilities by the IAEA, the nuclear inspection and regulatory organization linked to the United Nations. North Korea also announced that it was restarting a nuclear reactor that had been shut down under the 1994 agreement and a reprocessing laboratory that could convert spent fuel rods into the plutonium needed for making atomic bombs. At the end of December, North Korea expelled IAEA monitors from the country and dismantled IAEA monitoring equipment. The crisis further escalated in January 2003 when North Korea announced that it was withdrawing from the NPT. The withdrawal was unprecedented among nations that signed the treaty. See also Arms Control; Nuclear Weapons Proliferation.

In October 2003 North Korea announced that it was using plutonium extracted from spent fuel rods used in a nuclear power plant to make atomic weapons. The following month the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency reaffirmed its belief that North Korea possessed at least one and possibly two nuclear bombs. However, U.S. officials also expressed skepticism that North Korea had been able to reprocess the fuel rods to extract plutonium, which would give North Korea enough nuclear material to make five or six bombs. Some U.S. experts on nuclear weapons and North Korea expressed doubt that North Korean scientists had been able to build nuclear weapons from plutonium or uranium. North Korea has never conducted a nuclear test to confirm that it has nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, China attempted to defuse the crisis by acting as a mediator between North Korea and the United States, which had characterized North Korea as being part of an “axis of evil” in a 2002 State of the Union speech by President George W. Bush. North Korea sought direct talks with the United States, but the United States refused to meet in one-on-one negotiations. China fashioned a compromise in which negotiations would take place among six concerned nations—China, Japan, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, and the United States. Since 2003 three rounds of talks have been held, the last taking place in Beijing, China's capital, in June 2004. North Korea canceled a round of talks scheduled for September 2004, citing what it called a “hostile” U.S. policy. Political observers said North Korea decided to await the outcome of the November 2004 U.S. presidential elections to see if Bush would be defeated. None of the talks achieved any significant breakthrough.

In early February 2005 U.S. officials reportedly told Asian allies that North Korea had been able to reprocess fuel rods to make weapons-grade plutonium. The same month the North Korean government announced publicly that it had manufactured nuclear weapons for self-defense and that it was withdrawing indefinitely from the six-nation talks. North Korea renewed its call for direct negotiations with the United States.

North Korea: Flag and Anthem