North Korea

An independent kingdom for much of its long history, Korea was occupied by Japan beginning in 1905 following the Russo-Japanese War. Five years later, Japan formally annexed the entire peninsula. Following World War II, Korea was split with the northern half coming under Soviet-sponsored Communist control. After failing in the Korean War (1950-53) to conquer the US-backed Republic of Korea (ROK) in the southern portion by force, North Korea (DPRK), under its founder President KIM Il Sung, adopted a policy of ostensible diplomatic and economic "self-reliance" as a check against outside influence. The DPRK demonized the US as the ultimate threat to its social system through state-funded propaganda, and molded political, economic, and military policies around the core ideological objective of eventual unification of Korea under Pyongyang's control. KIM's son, the current ruler KIM Jong Il, was officially designated as his father's successor in 1980, assuming a growing political and managerial role until the elder KIM's death in 1994. After decades of economic mismanagement and resource misallocation, the DPRK since the mid-1990s has relied heavily on international aid to feed its population. North Korea's history of regional military provocations, proliferation of military-related items, long-range missile development, WMD programs including tests of nuclear devices in 2006 and 2009, and massive conventional armed forces are of major concern to the international community.

Economical characteristics

 * Currency: North Korean won (ISO code: KPW)

Links

 * North Korea on Wikipedia
 * The reported central bank of North Korea
 * Studies from the Library of Congress (1986-1998)
 * BBC country profile
 * North Koreans dare to protest as devaluation wipes out savings by David McNeill, December 2009
 * WikiLeaks row: China wants Korean reunification, officials confirm by Simon Tisdall, November 2010
 * Why Is North Korea Always Short on Food? by Brian Palmer, March 2012
 * Turning a blind eye to North Korea’s ‘hidden gulag’, Washington Post, April 2012
 * The secret item found in every North Korean home, New Focus International, March 2013
 * North Korean Film Madness (video documentary) Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
 * Striking ISS Photo Shows How Dark North Korea is Compared to Its Neighbors by DL Cade, February 2014
 * The hopes of North Korea’s ‘Black Market Generation’ by Yeon-mi Park, May 2014
 * Pyongyang’s Hunger Games by Joshua Stanton and Sung-Yoon Lee, March 2014
 * It's not all doom and gloom in Pyongyang by Andrei Lankov, September 2011
 * ‘The other side of North Korea’: A defected smuggler’s extraordinary story by Max Fisher, December 2013
 * The Political Philosophy of Juche (pdf) by Grace Lee, May 2003
 * Marked for Life: Songbun - North Korea’s Social Classification System (pdf) by Robert Collins, 2012
 * Songbun - Social Class in a Socialist Paradise by Sokeel J. Park, June 2012
 * A Teenager's Guide to Doing Business in North Korea (audio), NPR, June 2014
 * A Teenager's Guide to Doing Business in North Korea (audio), NPR, June 2014