Facts about North Korea
SEOUL, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Following are key facts about North Korea:
NAME: Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
POPULATION: 22.2 million (July 2002 estimate)
POLITICS: Stalinist
CAPITAL: Pyongyang
AREA: 122,762 square km (47,386 square miles) bounded by China and Russia to the north and South
Korea to the south. North Korea makes up 55 percent of the Korean peninsula, which is the size of the
U.S. state of Minnesota or slightly smaller than Britain.
ARMED FORCES: The world's most militarised nation relative to population size and the world's fifthlargest military. Active forces 1.14 million; Reserves 7.45 million; Special forces, about 100,000, world's
largest.
More than half of North Korea's army is deployed within 65 km (40 miles) of the demilitarised zone
dividing it from South Korea.
MILITARY SPENDING: $5.1 billion (2001 estimate), some 31 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).
Army - 996,000, with some 3,800 main battle tanks, 2,270 armoured personnel carriers and 11,200
artillery pieces.
Navy - 48,000, with 430 combat ships, 50 submarines and 340 support vessels.
Air Force - 103,000, with 850 combat aircraft, 510 support aircraft and 310 helicopters.
MISSILE CAPABILITY: Nodong missile (1,300-km range). Those under development include: Taepodong 1
(estimated 1,500-km range), Taepodong 2 (could target U.S. bases in Guam and possibly Alaska).
NUCLEAR BOMB CAPABILITY: U.S. intelligence estimates North Korea has enough plutonium for two to
five bombs.
ECONOMY: Gross domestic product growth was 3.7 percent in 2001, an increase spurred by inflows of
foreign aid and reflecting a rebound from a downward spiral in the 1990s.
TRADE: $2.27 billion in 2001, with China its biggest trading partner, followed by Japan and India. Last
year, South Korea became a major trading partner.
MODERN HISTORY: Soviet troops entered the northern half of Korea and U.S. troops the southern half in
1945 to disarm the Japanese, who had ruled the peninsula as a colony for 35 years until their World War
Two surrender.
In 1948, following formation of the U.S.-backed Republic of Korea (ROK) in Seoul, the rival DPRK was
established in Pyongyang with Kim Il-sung, a Soviet-backed, anti-Japanese resistance leader, as its first
prime minister. He became president in 1972.
In June 1950, North Korean armed forces attacked the South in an attempt to reunite the country by
force. Chinese troops later joined them to oppose U.S.-led United Nations forces. The Korean War ended
with a truce signed in July 1953, and the two Koreas remain technically at war.
North Korea kept an equal distance between Moscow and Beijing in the 1960s and 1970s, but later edged
towards Moscow.
At the end of the 1980s, Kim Il-sung -- alarmed as Mikhail Gorbachev's "perestroika" reforms hastened
the break-up of communist East Europe and then the Soviet Union itself -- tilted back decisively towards
Beijing, which was returning to hardline policies after a 1989 crackdown on dissent.
The collapse of the Soviet empire, and China's own need for foreign exchange, meant Pyongyang could no
longer rely on barter trade and its economy began to crumble.
While the Cold War may have ended elsewhere, it remains intractably in place on the Korean peninsula.
In March 1994, international suspicion that North Korea might have nuclear weapons rose when U.N.
nuclear experts reported they had been blocked from inspecting two key nuclear sites. Later that year,
North Korea agreed with the United States to allow checks on its nuclear sites in exchange for fuel oil
deliveries and safer nuclear power plants.
The death of Kim Il-sung, the so-called "Great Leader", in July 1994 brought to de-facto power his son,
so-called "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il, in the first communist dynastic succession.
Two consecutive years of severe floods, followed by a year of drought, set off a near-famine that forced
North Korea to make unprecedented appeals for international food aid.
Relief agencies reported peasants were eating grass to survive. Unconfirmed estimates of deaths resulting
from starvation have reached into the millions, while as many as 300,000 North Koreans are thought to
have fled to China.
Kim Jong-il was elected general secretary of the ruling Korean Workers' Party in October 1997. He was
made de facto head of state in September 1998 when he was re-elected chairman of the enhanced
National Defence Commission, but the parliament named the late Kim Il-sung North Korea's "eternal
president".
South Korean President Kim Dae-jung took office in February 1998 and began a "sunshine policy" of
economic and cultural contacts with the North.
In August 1998, North Korea test-fired a missile over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean, triggering alarm in
the United States.
Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il held a landmark summit in Pyongyang in June 2000, producing a pact to
reduce tension on the peninsula and to arrange reunions of families separated since the Korean War.
Family reunions and ministerial meetings followed.
In October 2000, North Korean military leader Jo Myong-rok went to Washington, the most senior
Northern official to visit the United States, and then U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited
Pyongyang for talks with Kim Jong-il.
But North Korea shelved nearly all dealings with the South in March 2001 after new President George W.
Bush reviewed U.S. policy towards North Korea and voiced doubts over whether Kim Jong-il could be
trusted to honour agreements.
The North-South stalemate continued into 2002, as Washington renewed its focus on weapons
proliferation after the September 11 attacks. An early 2002 Bush speech embittered North Korea by
bracketing it with Iran and Iraq in an "axis of evil".
Tensions have been rising on the peninsula since the United States said Pyongyang had admitted last
October it had pursued a nuclear arms programme in violation of the 1994 agreement.
The secretive state has caused alarm across the world since it disabled U.N. nuclear monitoring
equipment, expelled U.N. nuclear inspectors and last month pulled out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
On Monday, it test-fired a short-range missile into the Sea of Japan.
Citing intelligence obtained from satellite photographs, U.S. officials said on Wednesday that North Korea
had restarted the Yongbyon research reactor at the heart of its suspected drive to build nuclear weapons.
(Data from U.S., South Korean government publications, various security think tanks)