North Korea (DPRK)조선민주주의인민공화국

The peninsula shared one history for well over a thousand years. The kingdom of Goguryeo, which held the north and much of Manchuria until 668, had its later capital at Pyongyang, and its painted tombs near the city are on the UNESCO list. The Goryeo dynasty (918–1392) gave Korea its Western name and ruled from Kaesong, now just north of the border. The Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) ruled from Seoul, and the north was then a frontier region, poorer and often treated with suspicion by the southern elite.

Japan annexed Korea in 1910. Colonial rule brought railways, mines and heavy industry, much of it in the north, along with forced assimilation, labour mobilisation and, in the war years, bans on the Korean language in schools. Small guerrilla bands fought the Japanese in Manchuria in the 1930s. One of their commanders, Kim Il Sung, later made that struggle the founding myth of the state, and its official version inflates his role considerably.

At Japan's surrender in August 1945 the US and the Soviet Union divided Korea at the 38th parallel as a temporary measure. Two states emerged in 1948: the Republic of Korea in the south and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north, with Kim Il Sung installed with Soviet backing. In June 1950 the North invaded the South. UN forces led by the US pushed north to the Chinese border; China then entered the war and the front settled near the old line. The armistice of July 1953 created the Demilitarized Zone. No peace treaty has been signed.

The war levelled the North's cities; Pyongyang was rebuilt almost from scratch. Through the 1950s and 1960s the economy grew quickly with Soviet and Chinese aid, and many observers thought the North was ahead of the South into the 1970s. Kim Il Sung removed rival factions, built a personality cult and steered between Moscow and Beijing. The collapse of the Soviet Union ended subsidised oil and trade, and after Kim Il Sung's death in 1994 floods and systemic failure produced a famine in which estimates of the dead range from several hundred thousand to around two million.

Kim Jong Il ruled through the 'military first' policy and pursued nuclear weapons; the first test came in 2006. Kim Jong Un succeeded him in December 2011, tested more powerful devices and long-range missiles, and met US President Trump three times in 2018–19 without a lasting agreement. From 2020 the border was sealed against the pandemic more tightly than almost anywhere. Since 2023 the government has abandoned the long-standing goal of peaceful reunification, declared South Korea a separate hostile state, and moved much closer to Russia, signing a mutual defence treaty in 2024.

Formal power sits with the Workers' Party of Korea, the State Affairs Commission and the Supreme People's Assembly, but real authority runs through the leader. Kim Il Sung is 'Eternal President', Kim Jong Il 'Eternal General Secretary' in some formulas, and Kim Jong Un leads all three institutions. Their birthdays, 15 April and 16 February, are the biggest holidays of the year, and the leaders' embalmed bodies lie in the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in Pyongyang.

The official ideology is Juche, usually translated as self-reliance: a doctrine that the nation, led by its leader, masters its own fate. Kim Jong Il's 'Songun' or military-first politics was added in the 1990s, and the two are now presented together as Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism. In practice the ideology justifies isolation, mobilisation and total loyalty. Every adult belongs to organisations through work, the party, the youth league or the women's union, and attends regular study and self-criticism sessions.

Society has long been sorted by songbun, a classification of families by their political reliability going back to the 1950s. Descendants of anti-Japanese fighters and war heroes sit at the top; descendants of landlords, collaborators or people who went south sit at the bottom. Songbun has historically affected where people may live, whether they may join the party or the army and whether they may live in Pyongyang, which is reserved for the more trusted. Money earned in markets has loosened the system somewhat but not replaced it.

Control is tight. Travel between provinces needs permission, domestic phones cannot call abroad, and the internet is limited to a small elite; ordinary users see only a national intranet. Watching or sharing foreign media, especially from South Korea, is severely punished under laws passed from 2020 onwards. UN investigators have documented a system of political prison camps and found crimes against humanity; the government rejects the findings. Tens of thousands of people have fled, most through China, and around 34,000 now live in South Korea.

For visitors in the pre-2020 period this system showed up as two guides who never left the group, a fixed itinerary, hotels such as the Yanggakdo on an island in the Taedong River, and scripted encounters. Those rules were not a formality: the state regards unscripted contact between foreigners and citizens as a security matter, and the citizen usually bears the greater risk.

Art in North Korea serves the state. Painting, film, music and literature follow socialist realism in a local form: heroic workers, soldiers and farmers, and above all the leaders, shown smiling among the people. Almost all official artworks, from giant bronze statues to embroidery, come from the Mansudae Art Studio in Pyongyang, one of the largest art workshops in the world. The studio has also built monuments abroad, especially in Africa, work that is now restricted by UN sanctions.

Pyongyang is a planned capital built after 1953 as a showcase. Wide boulevards lead to monuments on axis: the Juche Tower, 170 m high on the east bank of the Taedong; the Arch of Triumph, deliberately taller than the one in Paris; and the Monument to Party Founding with its hammer, sickle and writing brush. The 105-storey Ryugyong Hotel, begun in 1987, stood as a concrete shell for decades and has never fully opened. Under Kim Jong Un whole districts of pastel high-rise flats have gone up, such as Mirae Scientists Street and Ryomyong Street.

The Pyongyang Metro, opened in 1973, runs deep underground and doubles as a shelter; its stations are decorated with chandeliers, marble and mosaics of the leaders. It carries two lines, and was one of the few places pre-2020 visitors could stand among ordinary commuters, for a few stops.

Mass performance is a form of its own. The Mass Games, in which tens of thousands of performers move in unison while students in the stands flip coloured cards to form giant images, were staged at the May Day Stadium for years under the name Arirang. Revolutionary operas such as The Sea of Blood and a strict canon of patriotic songs are taught at school. Posters with bold red and blue lettering still carry current campaigns, from harvests to anti-US messages, the latter toned down during the 2018 summits and later restored.

Traditional Korean arts survive in state form: the kayagum zither and folk dances are performed, but reworked with modern instruments and political lyrics. Kaesong keeps a small area of old tiled houses, and Buddhist temples such as Pohyon on Mount Myohyang stand as heritage sites, staffed but closely supervised.

Officially, the state provides: jobs, housing, schooling and rations are allocated. In reality the public distribution system largely broke down in the 1990s famine, and households learned to survive through markets, known as jangmadang. Women, often less tied to state workplaces than men, became the traders. Hundreds of official markets now operate, and private money shapes daily life more than the ideology admits, although the state has tried to reassert control over grain and currency trade since around 2020.

The gap between Pyongyang and the provinces is large. The capital has more reliable electricity, better shops, taxis, restaurants and, for some, mobile phones and cars. Outside it, many areas live with intermittent power, and farming still depends heavily on manual labour; students, soldiers and office workers are sent to the fields at planting and harvest. UN agencies estimate that a large share of the population does not have enough food, though access for aid workers has been minimal since 2020.

Food follows northern Korean tradition. Pyongyang naengmyeon, cold buckwheat noodles in a clear broth, is the best-known dish, and the Okryu restaurant by the Taedong is its reference point. Kimchi is made in large batches each autumn, rice is often mixed with corn, and soju and local beers such as Taedonggang are the common drinks. What people actually eat depends heavily on region, income and year.

Military service is long: around eight to ten years for men and several years for women, though the lengths have varied. Schooling is compulsory for twelve years and heavy on political education. Mobile phones spread quickly after 2008, reaching several million users, but only within the domestic network. Smuggled USB sticks and SD cards carrying South Korean dramas have been one of the main windows on the outside world, which is why the penalties for them have risen.

The economy is shaped by sanctions. UN resolutions since 2006 ban most exports, including coal, textiles and seafood, and cap fuel imports. China remains the main trading partner, and since 2023 trade and military cooperation with Russia has grown sharply. Tourism was one of the few sources of foreign currency not directly banned, which is why the state has built resorts such as the Masikryong ski resort and the Wonsan-Kalma beach zone, though so far for very few foreign guests.