National Day of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

TODAY is the National Day of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or North Korea. After the end of the Korean War, North Korea experienced development. For many years, the country remained quite untouched by the countries of America and Europe. Most of the country’s foreign relations are with its socialist neighbors such as Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and China.

North Korea’s population of roughly 25 million is one of the most ethnically and linguistically homogenous in the world, with very small numbers of Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, South Korean, and European expatriate minorities. The country shares a land border with China to the north and northwest. The Korean Demilitarized Zone marks the de facto boundary between North Korea and South Korea. Pyongyang is the capital and largest city.

North Korea has an industrialized, near autarkic, highly centralized command economy. Of the five remaining Communist states in the world, North Korea is one of only two (along with Cuba) with an almost entirely government-planned, stateowned economy. The country has the highest number of military personnel in the world with around 9.45 million active, reserve, and paramilitary workforce. It is the fourth largest in the world in terms of its active duty army which is around 1.21 million. The country is a nuclear weapons state and the government employs an active space program.

We congratulate the people and government of North Korea led by Supreme Leader and First Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea Kim Jong-un, Assembly Presidium Chairman Kim Yong-nam, and Premier Pak Pong-ju, on the occasion of its National Day.