The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea lies on the northern half of the Korean peninsula in North-East Asia. It is bounded on the northeast by the Russian Far East and on the north - by China along the rivers Tuman-gang (Tumen in Chinese) and Amnok-kang (Yalu in Chinese).
In the south, approximately by the 38th parallel, the country faces the fortified border with the Republic of Korea.
From the west, the DPRK is washed by Yellow Sea which Koreans call the Korean West Sea.
From the east it meets surfs of Japanese Sea, the name totally unaccented by all Koreans as they call it the Korean East Sea.
The most part of the state territory which occupies about 121,200 sq km is covered with mountains. Lowland is limited by only 25% of the territory and mostly lies on the western cost of the country.
The volcanic Mount Paektu or Paektu-san (2744 m/9003 ft), on the Chinese border, is the highest peak in the DPRK. Other major mountains are Chilbo (video here), Myohyang and Kumgang. When you say it in Korean language the syllable san which means «mountain» is added at the end to the name of each mountain like Chilbo-san, Myohyang-san, Kumgang-san.
The DPRK has a continental climate with four seasons, including hot and humid summers and cold windy winters. Annual precipitation varies from 900 to 1500 mm and is concentrated in the summer time. In July temperature in Pyongyang can be over 30° C but winter temperature in January sometimes falls down to -15° C and even lower in the north. Winds make the winter extremely chilling but only for a short time.
The best time to visit North Korea is spring and early summer (from April to the end of June) and in autumn (from September to November). Rainy season which cause floods lasts usually in July and August and Koreans call it changma. This is definitely an inappropriate time of year for visiting Korea.
Northern part of Korea is quite rich of mineral resources. Its reserves have coal, iron ore, magnesite, molybdenum, tungsten, copper, lead, zinc, gold, silver and many more.
The DPRK’s ethnically homogeneous population totals about 24 million and largely concentrates in the lowland western and central parts of the country. There is no ethnic and language minorities there but a small Chinese community lives in Pyongyang and there are some Japanese people married Koreans, mostly old by now.
Trying not to bore the reader, just in a few words let’s introduce the minimum from the historic moments and facts which can help to understand things in Korea.
In 1910 Japan imposed annexation treaty to Korea and the country lost its independence. But Koreans cold not and did not tolerate the Japanese colonial rule. On March 1, 1919 massive uprising rolled through big Korean cities. Although it was suppressed brutally, the unrest demonstrated the spirit of independence struggle in Korea. Many underground groups of fighters and partisan militia were formed in the country and across the border with China. Newspapers told the stories of headache caused to Japanese by partisan units of a person named Kim Il-Sung. Under this name the young and handsome man whose real name was Kim Sun-Joo appeared in front of the people’s crowd in Pyongyang as the first North Korean leader.
After defeat of Japan in the World War II in August of 1945 Korea was liberated from colonialism with landing of Soviet troops on North-East coast of the peninsula and later US troops on its Southern part. Koreans gained independence but lost their national unity. The unrest country with confrontation between nationalist, pro-western politicians and communists was divided by the 38th parallel. The northern part was put under protection of the former USSR and the South got into American guardianship.
Moscow was hoping that the supposed democratic election of the Korean government would bring there a socialist state but the USA tried not to let it go and wished to keep at least the southern part of Korea under capitalism with the possibility of spreading it to the north in any future. In other words, the superpowers initially did not intended to divide Korea permanently but it happened exactly like that and the peninsula became an arena of competition between two ideologies and systems.
In 1948 the Republic of Korea was proclaimed in the South and the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea was founded in the North. Both governments refused to recognize the legitimacy of each other.
Korean language is the only one which is used in the DPRK. The standard language is based on Pyongyang dialect which has some pronunciation, spelling and lexical difference from the Korean language in Seoul. The grammar of the Korean language is close to Japanese and many loan-words came from China and sound very similar to Chinese. However Korean which is considered to be originated from Altaic family of languages by some linguists, stands very separate.
The syllable writing system of the Korean language, that was created in 1444, is based on the simple letters and actually can be recognized as the simplest in the world. Every written syllable looks like a complex character but it consists of letters which are easy to remember. One can learn reading in Korean just in a couple of hours. And this is the best way to study basic Korean because all existing transcriptions make it much worse. In contrary with South Korea in the North no Chinese characters used for writing along with the Korean alphabet. Lexical minimum for everyday conversations is 3000-4000 words and for understanding technical terminology 2000 more words are required.
The flag was created in 1947. The red colour symbolizes struggling spirit of Korean revolutionaries which shed their blood under the Red flag of Revolution. The white circle and two thin strips from the both sides
Socialism has been proclaimed as a state system in DPRK which is based on juche ideology and so called “dictatorship of people’s democracy”. There is a constitution which was amended in 1998 and abolished title of the president as a head of state. The top power in DPRK belongs to unicameral parliament, known as the Supreme People’s Assembly /SPA/ which has permanent presidium acting between parliamentary sessions. The chairman of the Presidium of SPA formally is the head of state. Executive power is being implemented by the cabinet of ministers. The leading role in the country is played by the Korea Labor Party (Josun Nodong-dang) with its Secretary General as its head. This position was succeed by Kim Jung-Il from his father Kim Il-Sung. Thus Kim Jung-Il is the supreme leader in the country.
Juche Ideas are the official ideology in DPRK. The word "juche" originated from two Chinese characters in Korean pronunciation: “ju” self and “che” body.
Kim Il-Sung described the ideas as follows: “Establishing juche is to have a thrifty approach to the revolution and construction in one’s country. It means to follow self-dependent position which demands rejecting the habit of reliance on others and derects to think with your own head, to believe in your own power, to implement the spirit of self-reliance and always to handle your own problems and be responsible for them. It means to follow the
Unlike the former Soviet Union, several political party formally exist in DPRK. However there is no opposition. The ruling party is the Korean Labor Party which Korean name Choson Nodong-dang usually translated into English as Korean Workers Party. It is not exact option from linguistic point of view. Worker in Korean is nodongja but the word nodong means “labor”. May be translators preferred the word “workers” stressing the difference from labor parties in capitalist countries.
The KLP is the biggest organization in the republic which has an absolute ruling role and control in every field of life including government, diplomacy, economy and defense. Other parties mostly exist for maintaining ties with similar political organizations in foreign countries or Koreans abroad. They have their own leaders and central committees but completely support the line and policy of the Korean Labor Party.
The biggest among non-ruling parties in DPRK is the Social Democratic Party of Korea /SDPK/ which was founded just after liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial regime first as the Democratic Party of North Korea. Soon it started “socialist transformation” of members among private tradesmen and businessmen and joined campaign of KLP for establishing people’s power based on the coalition of all political forces. In 1994 about 30 thousand members were in the SDPK. As the religious party Chundogyo Chunoo-dang /Party of the Young Friends of Heaven’s Way/ SDPK takes part in the United Democratic Patriotic Front and follows the juche ideology.
Every person in DPRK actively socialized since childhood and must be and under control of a certain organization. If someone is not a party member he or she would be a member of another body. School children are united in scout-like organization Sonnyun-dang, wear red neck-ties and walk in dismounted formation. Young North Koreans become members of the Union of Socialist Youth of Kim Il-Sung which was known previously as the Union of Socialist Labor Youth of Korea and now unites over 5 million members. There are also organizations of women, professionals and artists but even if a person for example a pensioner is not under control of any of them he or she is a member of a neighborhood group - inminban. Every inminban unites several families living in an apartment or a block and has a chairman which has right to visit homes any of the families any time to find out about its life. With these groups North Koreans organize help for elders or mothers of several children or prevent and correct any misbehavior.
There is no official statistic about crimes in DPRK but foreigners are advised to take precautions of the same state as in other countries. The Criminal Code was adopted in 1950 and amended in 1974 and 1987.
The law consists of 8 chapters, 13 parts and 116 articles and describes punishment system for such categories as state crimes, crimes against socialist economy, crimes against socialist culture, crimes against administrative order in the state, crimes against socialist public life and crimes against life and property of individuals.
State crimes are any actions or violations of order aimed at overturn of the socialist system. In another words, it means efforts to overthrow state’s power, terrorism and espionage, anti-state propaganda and agitation, instigation for military intervention and braking foreign relations, treason of the nation, concealment of a state crime.
Hostile actions of foreign nationals in DPRK are also equal to state crimes.
The most serious state crimes are punished by death or correctional labor up to 15 years with suspension of rights and confiscation of property. There is no life sentence in DPRK. By the Criminal Code studying and expression of sympathy to any ideology or policy is not considered as a crime (KCNA, 06/05/1992)