North Korea

Korean tradition traces the nation's origin to Gojoseon, a kingdom said in the 13th-century Samguk yusa to have been founded in 2333 BCE by the mythical Dangun. While the founding legend is myth, Gojoseon was a real Bronze and Iron Age polity in the northern peninsula and parts of Manchuria, much of it within the territory that would later become North Korea. It fell to the Han Chinese empire in 108 BCE, after which the peninsula fragmented into smaller statelets that gradually coalesced into larger kingdoms.

From this fragmentation rose the Three Kingdoms of Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla. Goguryeo, the largest and most militarized, dominated the north and much of Manchuria; Baekje was a maritime power in the southwest; and Silla rose later in the southeast. Buddhism, introduced in the 4th century, became a unifying religious and artistic force. Allied with Tang China, Silla conquered Baekje in 660 and Goguryeo in 668 and then expelled the Tang, bringing the Korean people under a single indigenous rule for the first time in their recorded history.

Unified Silla gave way in 918 to the Goryeo dynasty, from which the Western name Korea derives, a Buddhist civilization famous for celadon ceramics and the Tripitaka Koreana woodblocks. In 1392 the general Yi Seong-gye founded the Joseon dynasty, which adopted Neo-Confucianism, ruled for more than five centuries from Hanyang (Seoul), and under King Sejong created the hangul alphabet. This long shared history belongs equally to North and South Korea; the two states diverged only with the colonial and Cold War upheavals of the 20th century.

Turning points

1. 2333 BCE (legendary)Formation

   Legendary founding of Gojoseon

   According to the Samguk yusa, the mythical Dangun establishes Gojoseon, traditionally regarded as the first Korean kingdom and a shared origin point for both Koreas.

   [1] [2]

2. 668 CEWar & Rupture

   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.

   ↗See the data

   [1] [3]

3. 918 CEFormation

   Goryeo dynasty founded

   Wang Geon establishes the Goryeo dynasty, which reunifies the peninsula and gives rise to the Western name Korea.

   [1]

4. 1392 CEFormation

   Joseon dynasty founded

   Yi Seong-gye founds the long-lived Joseon dynasty, which adopts Neo-Confucianism and under King Sejong creates the hangul alphabet.

   [4] [1]

Japan annexed Korea in 1910, ending the Joseon dynasty and beginning thirty-five years of colonial rule over the whole peninsula. The colonial government ruled through military and police power, censored the press, reorganized the economy to serve Japanese interests, and in its later years intensified forced assimilation, suppressing the Korean language and mobilizing Koreans for forced labor and wartime service. Resistance was constant, most famously in the March First Movement of 1919, and an independence struggle continued in exile and at home throughout the colonial period.

Among the Korean exiles who fought Japanese rule was Kim Il Sung, who led a Korean contingent in guerrilla and Soviet army service in Manchuria and the Russian Far East. When Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945, ending the Second World War, the peninsula was liberated, but liberation came hand in hand with partition. To accept the Japanese surrender, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to divide Korea along the 38th parallel, the Soviets occupying the north and the Americans the south, a line chosen hastily by two American officers with little regard for Korean realities.

Efforts to reunify the two occupation zones into a single Korean government failed as Cold War rivalries deepened. In the north, Soviet authorities backed Kim Il Sung and a communist administration; in the south, a separate government took shape under American auspices. By 1948 two antagonistic states had emerged, each claiming to be the legitimate government of all Korea. The Republic of Korea was proclaimed in the south on 15 August 1948, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was founded in the north on 9 September 1948, completing the partition of the peninsula.

Turning points

1. 1910 CEColonisation

   Japanese annexation of Korea

   Japan formally annexes Korea, ending the Joseon dynasty and beginning thirty-five years of colonial rule over the entire peninsula.

   ↗See the data

   [5] [1]

2. 15 August 1945Politics & Power

   Liberation and division at the 38th parallel

   Japan's surrender frees Korea but the peninsula is split along the 38th parallel into Soviet and American occupation zones, setting the stage for two rival states.

   [11] [13]

3. 9 September 1948Formation

   Founding of the DPRK

   The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is proclaimed under Kim Il Sung, weeks after the Republic of Korea is established in the south, institutionalizing the division.

   [6] [7]

Figures of the era

On 25 June 1950 North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel into the south, opening the Korean War, the first major armed conflict of the Cold War. The North's army advanced rapidly and nearly overran the entire peninsula before the United States led a United Nations-authorized coalition to intervene. UN forces pushed the North's army back above the 38th parallel and deep into the north, until the People's Republic of China entered the war in late 1950 and drove the front back toward the original dividing line.

By late 1951 the opposing forces were deadlocked near the 38th parallel, and the conflict settled into a grinding stalemate that one Office of the Historian account compared to the trench warfare of the First World War. Truce talks at Panmunjom dragged on for two years, snagged in particular on the question of whether prisoners of war should be forcibly repatriated. Throughout the negotiations the fighting continued, and bombing and ground combat inflicted enormous destruction across both Koreas, killing several million people, a large proportion of them civilians.

On 27 July 1953 the two sides signed an armistice, halting the fighting near the line where it had begun and establishing a heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone along the front. No peace treaty followed, so the two Koreas remain technically at war to this day. The war entrenched the partition, devastated North Korea's cities and infrastructure, and shaped the country's enduring posture of militarized confrontation and reliance on its allies in Beijing and Moscow.

Turning points

1. 25 June 1950War & Rupture

   North Korea invades the South

   North Korean forces cross the 38th parallel, opening the Korean War; the North nearly overruns the peninsula before a US-led UN coalition intervenes.

   ↗See the data

   [11] [12]

2. Late 1950War & Rupture

   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.

   ↗See the data

   [11] [12]

3. 27 July 1953War & Rupture

   Korean War armistice

   An armistice halts the fighting and creates the Demilitarized Zone; no peace treaty is signed, freezing the division of the peninsula to the present day.

   ↗See the data

   [11] [13]

After the armistice Kim Il Sung consolidated absolute power, sidelining and purging rivals within the Korean Workers' Party and centralizing authority around himself. He promoted a philosophy of Juche, or self-reliance, first invoked in the mid-1950s and elaborated into the guiding ideology of the state, resting on principles of political independence, economic self-sufficiency and military self-defense. The state-run command economy, rebuilt with Soviet and Chinese aid, grew rapidly through the 1950s and 1960s as the country industrialized, before stagnating in later decades.

A new Socialist Constitution adopted in 1972 created the office of president for Kim Il Sung, named Juche the guiding idea of the Workers' Party, and confirmed Pyongyang as the capital. An elaborate cult of personality cast Kim as the Great Leader at the center of national life, and the regime cultivated a pervasive ideology celebrating the leader, the party and the nation. Maneuvering between the Soviet Union and China as their dispute deepened, North Korea preserved its autonomy while leaning on both for trade, technology and security guarantees.

From the 1970s Kim Il Sung groomed his son Kim Jong Il as successor, formally designating him in 1980 and gradually transferring party and military authority to him, an unprecedented hereditary succession in a communist state. When Kim Il Sung died of a heart attack in July 1994, he had ruled for nearly five decades. He was posthumously declared Eternal President, and power passed to Kim Jong Il, who would lead the country through the gravest crisis in its history.

Turning points

1. December 1972Politics & Power

   Socialist Constitution adopted

   A new constitution creates the presidency for Kim Il Sung, enshrines Juche as the Workers' Party's guiding idea, and confirms Pyongyang as the capital.

   [10] [6]

2. October 1980Politics & Power

   Kim Jong Il designated successor

   Kim Il Sung formally designates his son Kim Jong Il as his successor, beginning an unprecedented hereditary transfer of power in a communist state.

   [8] [6]

3. 17 September 1991Politics & Power

   North and South Korea join the UN

   Both Korean states are admitted to the United Nations with separate seats, an acknowledgment of the durability of the two-state division.

   [15] [6]

4. 8 July 1994Politics & Power

   Death of Kim Il Sung

   Kim Il Sung dies after ruling for nearly five decades; he is declared Eternal President and power passes to his son Kim Jong Il.

   [7] [8]

Figures of the era

Kim Jong Il, often titled the Dear Leader, became de facto ruler on his father's death in 1994 and formally took the country's highest posts by 1998. His rule opened amid catastrophe. The collapse of the Soviet Union ended vital subsidies and trade, China reduced its support, and severe flooding in the mid-1990s destroyed much of the harvest, causing the food rationing system to fail. The resulting famine, which the regime called the Arduous March, killed an estimated several hundred thousand to perhaps more than a million people between roughly 1994 and 1999, one of the defining traumas of the country's modern history.

Amid the crisis North Korea advanced a long-running nuclear weapons program that became the central issue in its relations with the outside world. After withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003 and expelling international inspectors, North Korea conducted its first underground nuclear test on 9 October 2006. Cycles of negotiation followed, including the Six-Party Talks involving China, the United States, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas, which produced agreements on denuclearization steps that repeatedly broke down. A landmark inter-Korean summit between Kim Jong Il and South Korea's Kim Dae-jung had been held in Pyongyang in 2000.

Despite famine, sanctions and economic hardship, Kim Jong Il maintained the family's grip on power and the priority of the military under a Songun, or military-first, policy. In his final years, with his health failing, he moved to secure a third hereditary succession, promoting his youngest son Kim Jong Un and granting him senior party and military rank. When Kim Jong Il died in December 2011, Kim Jong Un, then in his late twenties, inherited leadership of the state and its growing nuclear arsenal.

Turning points

1. 1994-1999Catastrophe

   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.

   ↗See the data

   [6] [14]

2. June 2000Politics & Power

   First inter-Korean summit

   Kim Jong Il hosts South Korean president Kim Dae-jung in Pyongyang in the first summit between the two Koreas, briefly easing tensions.

   [6] [8]

3. 9 October 2006Politics & Power

   First nuclear test

   North Korea conducts its first underground nuclear test, having withdrawn from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003 and cycled through failed negotiations.

   [17] [16]

4. 17 December 2011Politics & Power

   Death of Kim Jong Il

   Kim Jong Il dies and is succeeded by his youngest son Kim Jong Un, completing a third generation of hereditary rule.

   [8] [9]

Figures of the era

Kim Jong Un took power in 2011 and moved to consolidate his authority, including the 2013 execution of his uncle and one-time mentor Jang Song-thaek. He accelerated the nuclear and missile programs his father had pursued, conducting further underground nuclear tests, including the country's largest in 2017, and a rapid series of ballistic missile launches. North Korea declared itself a nuclear weapons state and enshrined that status in law, while the United Nations Security Council imposed successive rounds of sanctions in response to the tests.

In 2018 and 2019 Kim Jong Un undertook a striking burst of diplomacy. He met South Korean president Moon Jae-in at the inter-Korean border and became the first North Korean leader to meet a sitting U.S. president, holding a summit with Donald Trump in Singapore in June 2018 that produced a joint commitment to work toward denuclearization. A second summit in Hanoi in February 2019 collapsed without agreement over sanctions relief, and a brief meeting at the Demilitarized Zone later that year did not revive the process. Negotiations stalled, and North Korea resumed and intensified weapons testing.

Through the 2020s North Korea further expanded its arsenal, testing intercontinental ballistic missiles and codifying an assertive nuclear doctrine, while strengthening ties with Russia. In a significant shift, in late 2023 and early 2024 Kim Jong Un abandoned the long-standing goal of peaceful reunification, declaring South Korea a hostile, separate state and the country's principal enemy and calling for the constitution to be revised accordingly. Into 2026 North Korea remains one of the world's most closed and tightly controlled states, ruled by the third generation of the Kim family and committed to its nuclear program.

Turning points

1. 2017Politics & Power

   Largest nuclear test and ICBM launches

   North Korea conducts its most powerful nuclear test and tests intercontinental ballistic missiles, prompting expanded UN Security Council sanctions.

   [9] [16]

2. 12 June 2018Politics & Power

   Singapore summit with the United States

   Kim Jong Un becomes the first North Korean leader to meet a sitting U.S. president, signing a joint statement with Donald Trump on working toward denuclearization.

   [17] [9]

3. 27-28 February 2019Politics & Power

   Hanoi summit collapses

   A second Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi ends without agreement over sanctions and denuclearization, after which diplomacy stalls and weapons testing resumes.

   [17] [9]

4. January 2024Politics & Power

   South Korea declared principal enemy

   Kim Jong Un renounces the goal of peaceful reunification, declaring South Korea a hostile separate state and the North's principal enemy and calling for constitutional revision.

   [16] [9]

Figures of the era