North Korea

North Korea is a country located in Eastern Asia on the northern half of the Korean Peninsula, bordering the Korea Bay and the Sea of Japan, between China and South Korea, covering an area of approximately 120,538 square kilometers. As of 2025, North Korea has a population of about 26.4 million, with Korean as the official language. The country is mostly hills and mountains separated by deep, narrow valleys with wide coastal plains in the west, and has a temperate climate with rainfall concentrated in summer and long, bitter winters. Pyongyang serves as the capital, and the government operates as a dictatorship and single-party communist state.

North Korea has one of the last centrally planned economies with a GDP of $16.45 billion and a GDP per capita of just $600, with industries including military products, machine building, electric power, chemicals, mining, metallurgy, textiles, food processing, and tourism. Key agricultural products include rice, maize, potatoes, vegetables, apples, pork, chicken, eggs, cabbages, and milk, while natural resources include coal, iron ore, limestone, magnesite, graphite, copper, zinc, lead, precious metals, and hydropower. The economy has been hard hit by COVID-19, crop failures, international sanctions, and isolationist policies, with declining growth and heavy reliance on China.