66 Facts About North Korea

North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is a country in East Asia.

In 1945, after the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II, Korea was divided into two zones along the 38th parallel, with the north occupied by the Soviet Union and the south occupied by the United States.

Post-war North Korea benefited greatly from economic aid and expertise provided by other Eastern Bloc countries, particularly the Soviet Union and China.

Kim briefly turned to China in the late 1950s before purging both pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese elements from the ruling Workers' Party of North Korea and promoting his personal philosophy of Juche as the state ideology.

The Workers' Party of Korea is the ruling party of North Korea and leads the Democratic Front for the Reunification of Korea, the sole legal political movement in the country.

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From 1994 to 1998, North Korea suffered a famine that resulted in the deaths of between 240, 000 and 420, 000 people, and the population continues to suffer from malnutrition.

North Korea follows Songun, or "military first" policy, for its Korean People's Army.

The modern spelling of North Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the Dutch East India Company's Hendrick Hamel.

In 1948, North Korea adopted Democratic People's Republic of Korea as its new legal name.

Ambassador Shtykov suspected Rhee was planning to invade the North and was sympathetic to Kim's goal of Korean unification under socialism.

Military of North Korea invaded the South on 25 June 1950, and swiftly overran most of the country.

In 1959, relations with Japan had improved somewhat, and North Korea began allowing the repatriation of Japanese citizens in the country.

Life expectancy in the North Korea was 72 before the famine which was only marginally lower than in the South.

The country once boasted a comparatively developed healthcare system; pre-famine North Korea had a network of nearly 45, 000 family practitioners with some 800 hospitals and 1, 000 clinics.

The North failed in several assassination attempts on South Korean leaders, such as in 1968, 1974, and the Rangoon bombing in 1983; tunnels were found under the DMZ and tensions flared over the axe murder incident at Panmunjom in 1976.

North Korea promised to halt its development of nuclear weapons under the Agreed Framework, negotiated with U S president Bill Clinton and signed in 1994.

North Korea's administration rejected South Korea's Sunshine Policy and the Agreed Framework.

On 9 October 2006, North Korea announced it had conducted its first nuclear weapons test.

On 24 March 2022, North Korea conducted a successful ICBM test launch for the first time since the 2017 crisis.

North Korea occupies the northern portion of the Korean Peninsula, lying between latitudes 37° and 43°N, and longitudes 124° and 131°E.

Early European visitors to North Korea remarked that the country resembled "a sea in a heavy gale" because of the many successive mountain ranges that crisscross the peninsula.

Some 80 percent of North Korea is composed of mountains and uplands, separated by deep and narrow valleys.

The highest point in North Korea is Paektu Mountain, a volcanic mountain with an elevation of 2, 744 meters above sea level.

North Korea had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 8.

Executive power is vested in the Cabinet of North Korea, which has been headed by Premier Kim Tok-hun since 14 August 2020, who's officially the second-ranking official after Kim Jong-un.

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North Korea's authority extends over two vice-premiers, 30 ministers, two cabinet commission chairmen, the cabinet chief secretary, the president of the Central Bank, the director of the Central Bureau of Statistics and the president of the Academy of Sciences.

In 2013, Clause 2 of Article 10 of the newly edited Ten Fundamental Principles of the Workers' Party of North Korea stated that the party and revolution must be carried "eternally" by the "Mount Paektu Bloodline".

Several landmarks in North Korea are named for Kim Il-sung, including Kim Il-sung University, Kim Il-sung Stadium, and Kim Il-sung Square.

North Korea's birthday is one of the most important public holidays in the country.

North Korea joined the United Nations in 1991 together with South Korea.

North Korea is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, G77 and the ASEAN Regional Forum.

In July 2022, Ukraine severed its diplomatic relations with North Korea following North Korea's recognition of Luhansk People's Republic and Donetsk People's Republic.

North Korea enjoys a close relationship with China which is often called North Korea's closest ally.

North Korea continues to have strong ties with several Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Indonesia.

North Korea was previously designated a state sponsor of terrorism by the U S because of its alleged involvement in the 1983 Rangoon bombing and the 1987 bombing of a South Korean airliner.

North Korea was re-designated a state sponsor of terrorism by the U S under the Trump administration on 20 November 2017.

North Korea's policy is to seek reunification without what it sees as outside interference, through a federal structure retaining each side's leadership and systems.

However, relations remained cool well until the early 1990s, with a brief period in the early 1980s when North Korea offered to provide flood relief to its southern neighbor.

In 2009, North Korea responded by ending all of its previous agreements with the South.

North Korea has a civil law system based on the Prussian model and influenced by Japanese traditions and communist legal theory.

North Korea is widely described as having the worst human rights record in the world.

Citizens in North Korea are denied freedom of movement including the right to leave the country at will and its government denies access to international human rights observers.

North Korea is the only country in the world that has not explicitly criminalized any form of modern slavery.

UN sanctions on North Korea have made it difficult for the KPA to purchase or develop modern equipment and it remains largely reliant on outdated Cold War-era materiel.

North Korea is a nuclear-armed state, though the nature and strength of its arsenal is uncertain.

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In 2015, North Korea was reported to employ 6, 000 sophisticated computer security personnel in a cyberwarfare unit operating out of China.

North Korea successfully tested a new type of submarine-launched ballistic missile on 19 October 2021.

North Korea is under U S sanctions for developing missile systems, although since 2019, there have been more than 25 tests targeting the Alsom Islands off North Korea's southeast coast.

Only one out of ten leading causes of overall deaths in North Korea is attributed to communicable diseases, a disease which is reported to have declined by six percent since 2007.

Non-communicable diseases risk factors in North Korea include high rates of urbanization, an aging society, and high rates of smoking and alcohol consumption amongst men.

North Korea has the highest number of doctors per capita amongst low-income countries, with 3.

North Korea has maintained one of the most closed and centralized economies in the world since the 1940s.

North Korea declared the last seven-year plan unsuccessful in December 1993 and thereafter stopped announcing plans.

North Korea has the structural profile of a relatively industrialized country where nearly half of the Gross Domestic Product is generated by industry and human development is at medium levels.

North Korea has been aiming to increase the number of foreign visitors through projects like the Masikryong Ski Resort.

North Korea strives to develop its own civilian nuclear program.

On 7 February 2016, North Korea successfully launched a long-range rocket, supposedly to place a satellite into orbit.

Instead, North Korea has a walled garden intranet system called Kwangmyong, which is maintained and monitored by the Korea Computer Center.

All artists in North Korea are required to join the Artists' Union, and the best among them can receive an official license to portray the leaders.

The Workers' Party of North Korea Publishing House is the most authoritative among them and publishes all works of Kim Il-sung, ideological education materials and party policy documents.

The censorship in North Korea encompasses all the information produced by the media.

Media coverage of North Korea has often been inadequate as a result of the country's isolation.

Max Fisher of The Washington Post has written that "almost any story [on North Korea] is treated as broadly credible, no matter how outlandish or thinly sourced".

The DPR North Korea League is popular inside the country and its games are often televised.

In December 2013, former American basketball professional Dennis Rodman visited North Korea to help train the national team after he developed a friendship with Kim Jong-un.

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Between 2010 and 2019, North Korea has imported 138 purebred horses from Russia at cost of over $584, 000.