Side by side

China and North Korea compared

Two sourced records set beside each other — the figures each nation publishes, and the events each chronicle records of the other. Compared, never graded.

🇨🇳China

221 BCEQin Shi Huang completes the unification of China

Dossier →Chronicle →

🇰🇵North Korea

918Wang Kŏn founds Goryeo, which gives Korea its name

Dossier →Chronicle →

Shared indicators
27
Domains
9
Crossed events
3
Data through
2026-08-10

The figures, side by side

Each figure is the same observation, with the same source, as on the two dossiers. Every value shows the year it was observed — vintages differ by indicator and nation. A “—” is an absence in the source data, never a zero. Metric names link to the world ranking; values open the figure on its own dossier.

Entangled histories

3 events in which either nation’s sourced chronicle names the other — including under earlier names of the same state. Each is the same record, with the same sources, as on its own chronicle; nothing here was written for this page.

  1. 668 CE

    Silla unifies the peninsula

    Allied with Tang China, Silla conquers Baekje in 660 and Goguryeo in 668, then expels the Tang, achieving the first unification of Korea under native rule.

    War & Rupture · from the North Korea chronicle · Shared Korean Heritage · Korea (history), Three Kingdoms period

  2. Late 1950

    China enters the war

    After UN forces push deep into the north, the People's Republic of China intervenes and drives the front back toward the 38th parallel, producing a stalemate.

    War & Rupture · from the North Korea chronicle · The Korean War · The Korean War and Japan's Recovery, NSC-68 and the Korean War

  3. 1994-1999

    The Arduous March famine

    A famine driven by the loss of Soviet support, reduced Chinese aid and flooding kills an estimated several hundred thousand or more North Koreans, a defining national trauma.

    Catastrophe · from the North Korea chronicle · Famine and the Second Succession · History of North Korea, North Korea: A Country Study