Countries
Key facts
- Capital
- Pyongyang
- Region
- Asia, Eastern Asia
- Population
- 26,571,036 (2025)
- Area
- 120,540 km²
- Currency
- North Korean won (KPW)
- Languages
- Korean
- Calling code
- +850
- Internet domain
- .kp
- ISO codes
- KP, PRK, 408
- Time zone
- UTC+9:00
- United Nations
- Member state
- Postal code pattern
- ###-### (# = digit, @ = letter)
Land and position
North Korea covers about 120,540 square kilometres. By area it ranks 101st among the 250 countries and territories on this site. It is a little smaller than Eritrea and a little larger than Malawi. It shares a land border with 3 neighbours: China, South Korea, Russia. Its centre lies at about 40° north, 127° east, in the northern hemisphere.
Neighbours
People
About 26.6 million people live in North Korea (World Bank, 2025). That makes it the 56th most populous of the 246 places on this site with a figure, with about 0.32 percent of the world's people. On average there are 220 people to each square kilometre. About 64 percent of people live in towns and cities (World Bank, 2025). A baby born there can expect to live about 74 years (World Bank, 2024). Languages listed for it: Korean. A person from North Korea is called North Korean.
Money and economy
The currency is the North Korean won (code KPW, symbol ₩).
Time
North Korea uses one time zone, UTC+9:00 (Asia/Pyongyang). Clocks stay the same all year: there is no daylight saving time.
Time now: loading
Offsets are for January 2026. See Time Zones for a converter.
Largest cities
| City | People |
|---|---|
| Pyongyang | 3,222,000 |
| Hamhŭng | 559,056 |
| Namp’o | 455,000 |
| Sunch’ŏn | 437,000 |
| Hŭngnam | 346,082 |
| Kaesŏng | 338,155 |
City figures are from GeoNames and count the city itself, not the wider urban area. They can be some years old, so use them to see the order of size.
More in Eastern Asia
Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Mongolia, Taiwan. See the whole region.
Figures were collected on 11 November 2026 from the World Bank, GeoNames and the open countries data set. See About and data sources. Borders and names follow those sources and do not express any view on disputed territory.