North Korea: 12 absurd (and verified) facts about the world's most closed country

Imagine a country where laughing on the wrong day is banned, where saying "oppa" is a crime and where the president has been dead for more than thirty years. That country exists: North Korea.

These are the verified facts. And at the end, what's going around online that is false.

1. The president is a dead man

Kim Il-sung, the country's founder, died in 1994. Four years later, the Constitution named him "eternal president". His son, Kim Jong-il, died in 2011, and today both are the country's "eternal leaders".

The grandson, Kim Jong-un, rules: three generations of the same family in power since 1948.

2. The calendar started with grandpa

For almost thirty years, year one wasn't the year of Christ's birth, but 1912: the year Kim Il-sung was born. They called it the Juche calendar, and in 2024, without explanation, they stopped using it.

Even the time was different: in 2015 they set all clocks back half an hour to have their own "Pyongyang time". Three years later, after a summit with South Korea, they changed it back.

3. No laughing allowed

Every December, on the anniversary of Kim Jong-il's death, there is mandatory mourning. In 2021, for the tenth anniversary, residents told Radio Free Asia that for eleven days people couldn't laugh, drink alcohol or go out to have fun.

4. The banned words

In January 2023 a law was passed to protect the "Pyongyang cultural language". It bans speaking like South Koreans: words like "oppa", which girls use affectionately for their boyfriends, are out. And the law says that, in serious cases, the punishment can go as far as the death penalty.

5. A TV series can cost you your life

Since 2020, watching or distributing South Korean series and films has been a very serious crime. Amnesty International gathered testimonies of young people harshly punished just for watching them. And between 2022 and 2023, the list of crimes punishable by death grew from eleven to sixteen.

6. There's no internet

Most people have never seen the internet you use. There is only an internal network, called Kwangmyong, with government-approved pages. It's estimated that less than 10% of the population has ever used it.

7. Your grandparents decide your life

There is a system called songbun that classifies each person according to what their ancestors did: loyal, wavering and hostile. It determines where you live, what you study and even how much food you get. And if someone commits a political crime, the punishment can reach their whole family.

In 2014, the UN estimated between 80,000 and 120,000 political prisoners in four large camps.

8. The fake village

Next to the border with South Korea is a village called Kijong-dong. From a distance it looks modern. But, according to observers in the South, many buildings have no glass in the windows, and nobody living inside. And it has a flagpole about 160 meters tall, built to outdo South Korea's.

9. The ghost hotel

In the center of Pyongyang stands a 105-story pyramid: the Ryugyong Hotel. Construction began in 1987. Almost forty years later, it has never had a single guest.

10. The elections

In North Korea people vote, and almost everyone votes. But in each district there is only one candidate, chosen by the party. In 2023, for the first time in decades, state media admitted votes against. Even so, the candidates won with 99.91%.

11. The unicorn

In 2012, the state news agency announced that its archaeologists had confirmed the lair of an ancient king's unicorn. And the official legend says Kim Jong-il was born on Mount Paektu, under a double rainbow. Soviet records say he was born in a camp in Siberia.

12. The manure battle

Every January, the whole country has to hand over fertilizer for the fields, and much of that fertilizer is human excrement. According to Radio Free Asia, in 2025 each adult had to hand over five hundred kilos before January 20. There are fights, thefts, and even a black market for excrement.

What's false

You've probably read that only 28 haircuts are allowed there. There's no official document proving it. What does exist are groups that police "capitalist" hairstyles and clothing.

And the claim that Kim Jong-il hit eleven holes in one in his first game of golf: that story was inflated, mostly outside the country.

One last detail: this month, while rumors spread that Kim Jong-un was in a coma, state TV showed him visiting a clothing and shoe exhibition.