following the
Russo-Japanese War; five years later, Japan formally annexed the
entire peninsula. Following World War II, Korea was split with the
northern half coming under Soviet-sponsored Communist domination.
After failing in the Korean War (1950-53) to conquer the US-backed
republic in the southern portion by force, North Korea, under its
founder President KIM Il Sung, adopted a policy of ostensible
diplomatic and economic "self-reliance" as a check against excessive
Soviet or Communist Chinese influence. It molded political,
economic, and military policies around the core ideological
objective of eventual unification of Korea under Pyongyang's
control. KIM's son, the current ruler KIM Jong Il, was officially
designated as KIM's successor in 1980 and assumed a growing
political and managerial role until his father's death in 1994. He
assumed full power without opposition. After decades of economic
mismanagement and resource misallocation, the North since the
mid-1990s has relied heavily on international aid to feed its
population while continuing to expend resources to maintain an army
of about 1 million. North Korea's long-range missile development and
research into nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and massive
conventional armed forces are of major concern to the international
community. In December 2002, following revelations it was pursuing a
nuclear weapons program based on enriched uranium in violation of a
1994 agreement with the United States to freeze and ultimately
dismantle its existing plutonium-based program, North Korea expelled
monitors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In
January 2003, it declared its withdrawal from the international
Non-Proliferation Treaty. In mid-2003 Pyongyang announced it had
completed the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods (to extract
weapons-grade plutonium) and was developing a "nuclear deterrent."
From August 2003, North Korea has participated on and off in
six-party talks with the China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the
United States to resolve the stalemate over its nuclear programs.

Geography Korea, North

Location:
Eastern Asia, northern half of the Korean Peninsula bordering the
Korea Bay and the Sea of Japan, between China and South Korea

Geographic coordinates:
40 00 N, 127 00 E

Map references:
Asia

Area:
total: 120,540 sq km
land: 120,410 sq