KP is the abbreviation for North Korea, the 97th largest country in the world. Officially the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea is a country located in Eastern Asia, bordering 3 countries – China, Russia and South Korea. Pyongyang is the capital city of North Korea. Major cities include Pyongyang (population: 3,221,989), Hamhung (population: 559,045), Namp’o (population: 454,989), Sunch’ŏn (population: 436,989), Hŭngnam (population: 346,071), Kaesong (population: 338,144), Wonsan (population: 329,196), Chongjin (population: 326,989), Sariwŏn (population: 310,089), and Sinuiju (population: 288,101).
Country Profile
- Capital: Pyongyang
- Language: Korean
- Area: 120,540 km2
- Population: 25,368,609
- Currency: Korean People’s won (₩) (KPW)
- Time zone: UTC+9
- Calling code: 850
- ISO 2-Letter Abbreviation: KP
- UN 3-Letter Abbreviation: PRK
- Internet TLD: .kp
- State Government Website:
List of North Korea Acronyms
The most commonly used abbreviations about North Korea are KP which stands for North Korea and KPW which means Korean People’s won (North Korea currency). In the following table, you can see all acronyms related to North Korea, including abbreviations for airport, city, school, port, government, and etc.
Geography
Mountains and mountain areas make up about 80 percent of the land area in North Korea. The 25-mile border to South Korea is one of the world’s most militarized areas. The country’s highest mountains are the Paektu volcanoes. Along the border with China and Russia in the north, the Tumen and Yalu rivers flow.
The country is rich in mineral resources, especially coal and iron ore, but extensive industrialization and an inefficient planning economy have led to pollution of soils and drinking water. The need for fuel has meant that the lowland areas have been largely deforested – despite the fact that the country has been systematically planting forests since the mid-1950s. As a result of deforestation, soil erosion has also become a major problem. The country has a continental climate, with cold winters and hot summers. Monsoon winds affect the summer months and about half of all precipitation falls between June and August.
History
There have been various states on the Korean Peninsula for a very long time, for more than 4,000 years. Korea’s history is marked by the location between the major powers of China and Japan. From the 1300s onwards it was China that had the greatest influence over the Korean peninsula, but from the end of the 1800s Japan gained control and colonized the peninsula.
After Japan’s defeat in World War II, Korea was taken over by the Allies. The country was temporarily divided in two along the 38th latitude, and the goal was to create an independent Korean state. The attempt failed. The Soviet Union established a communist regime in the north, while the US deployed a government of nationalists in the south. After the US and Soviet withdrawal in 1948, a bloody civil war (1950-1953) arose between the Communist state in the north, with Chinese and Soviet support, and South Korea, with US-led and UN forces as allies. When the war ended, the limit remained virtually unchanged. The two countries have not yet signed a peace agreement. After the Korean War, about one million relatives were separated and most of them refused to have contact. Relations between countries are tense, and they are still being pushed across the border.
The country has been ruled with the iron hand of one family since independence. Today’s leader, Kim Jong-un, is the third Kim in the series. A personal cult has emerged around the first president, Kim Il-Sung. After his death, he was appointed “eternal president ” and a new time period is introduced from the year he was born (1912).
Society and politics
North Korea is a communist dictatorship. The community is militarized and closed to the outside world. The world knows little about North Korea’s political system. The country has a parliament and a government, but the Communist Labor Party dominates the state apparatus and the military. Kim Jong-Un is the head of state and leader of the party’s central military commission.
Since the 1950s, politics has been based on juche (self-confidence). Ideology emphasizes national, cultural and economic independence, and that the interests of the party and society must be put before the individual. Since 1994, the “military first” principle has played an important role. This means that the military is prioritized in the state budget and that the interests of the military are given priority over everything else in society.
The human rights situation in the country is poor. The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) reports on serious human rights violations, such as executions, slavery, torture, rape, forced abortions, forced displacement, disappearances and persecution due to politics, religion, race and gender. Since the 1950s, there have been political prison camps, described as concentration camps, which are believed to house more than 200,000 people. There are, among other things, the death penalty for fleeing the country. Since North Korea is so closed, only people who have fled know what the situation in the country really is for the people.
North Korea’s relationship with the rest of the world is tense. The country’s foreign policy is still characterized by the fact that it was never signed under any peace agreement between the North and the South when the Korean War ended. Today, North Korea’s main opponents are South Korea, the United States and Japan. North Korea’s supporters have traditionally been China and Russia. China has seemed more concerned about the turmoil on the Korean Peninsula and the collapse of the Communist regime than it is for North Korea to develop nuclear weapons. Still, things have deteriorated since Kim Jong-un came to power in 2012, and China’s influence has diminished. Russia has condemned nuclear bomb blasts and rocket launches, but is basically more for dialogue than sanctions.
Since the 1990s, international conditions have been characterized by the country’s development of nuclear weapons, and the outside world’s attempts to stop development. There have been several rounds of negotiations, and cases where North Korea has promised to halt the program against promises of aid. The first nuclear test was carried out in 2006. The world, through the Security Council, reacted strongly and imposed severe sanctions. There was hope that the tensions would be lessened when Kim Jong-un took over from his father, but many rocket launches and test blasts have been carried out. Since 2016, the country has conducted its sixth test blast and they have probably developed long-range missiles that can reach US territory. The world community has responded with increasingly stringent financial sanctions.
Economics and Commerce
North Korea has a planning economy, and the state controls just about every activity. The country’s economy is one of the world’s most centralized and isolated. Almost the entire product range in the country comes from the state-owned industry, and agriculture is organized into large collective farms (collectives). Agriculture accounts for a quarter of the economy, but crops are not enough to feed the population. The country depends on getting food and emergency aid from abroad.
Until the 1970s, North Korea was more industrialized than South Korea, and its average income was higher. This changed quickly. Energy shortages, old factories and poorly developed transport systems led to slow development. Economic mismanagement, and natural disasters led to more than a million deaths from hunger in the 1990s. The country received foreign disaster aid which is considered to have saved many lives. Among other things, the World Food Program (WFP) sent large food deliveries.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was disastrous for North Korea, which could no longer trade barter with Eastern Europe. Foreign trade collapsed, and industry and agriculture were hit by an acute energy shortage. Today, the country’s main trading partner is China, but foreign trade is limited. Large parts of the population live in poverty, and North Korea has become one of Asia’s poorest countries. In the 2010s, the economy has been hit hard by international sanctions against the country.
The corrupt political elite is known for living a luxury life and is suspected of being financed by organized crime and the few resources the state has. Corruption, high foreign debt, international sanctions and lack of professional skills hinder the economic development of the country.
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