North Korea

North Korea

North Korea is a country in East Asia constituting the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. It is bordered to the north by China and by Russia along the Amnok and Tumen rivers, and to the south by South Korea. North Korea claims to be the legitimate government of the entire peninsula and adjacent islands. The Workers’ Party of Korea holds absolute power in the state.

About North Korea in brief

Summary North KoreaNorth Korea is a country in East Asia constituting the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. The country is bordered to the north by China and by Russia along the Amnok and Tumen rivers, and to the south by South Korea. North Korea claims to be the legitimate government of the entire peninsula and adjacent islands. The Workers’ Party of Korea holds absolute power in the state and leads the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland of which all political officers are required to be members. The name Korea derives from the name Goryeo, which was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo in the 10th-century. The active duty army of 1.21 million is the fourth-largest in the world, after China, the United States and India; consisting of 4. 7% of its population. It is the country with the highest number of military and paramilitary personnel, with a total of 9,495,000 active, reserve and paramilitary. personnel, or approximately 37% of the population. North Koreans do not consider themselves as ‘North Koreans’ but as their compatriots in the divided country in the same way as South Koreans do. The North Korean government is commonly called the North Republic of Korea to distinguish it from South Korea, which is officially called North Korea in English. After the First Sino-Japanese War, Korea was occupied by Japan from 1910 to 1945, and operated as Dongnipino. In 1948, North Korea adopted Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea as its new legal name.

In the wider world, it is commonly known as North Korea, because the legal name is commonly used to refer to the whole of the North Korean peninsula. The people of the South consider themselves to be ‘Korean’ for the same reason, and are discouraged from using the term ‘North Korea’ in the former South Korean capital of Seoul. The Korean War of 1950-1953 ended with the Korean Armistice Agreement bringing about a ceasefire, but no peace treaty was signed. An invasion initiated by North Korea led to the Korean War. North Korea suffered a famine that resulted in the deaths of between 240,000 and 420,000 people, and the population continues to suffer malnutrition. The means of production are owned by the state through state-run enterprises and collectivized farms, and most services—such as healthcare, education, housing and food production—are subsidized or state-funded. It possesses nuclear weapons and is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, G77 and the ASEAN Regional Forum. A 2014 UN inquiry into abuses of human rights in North Korea concluded that, \”the gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world,\” with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch holding similar views. The North Korea government denies these abuses. It has been described by independent observers as sham elections, though they have been described as sham.