title: C++

text: Templates in C++ provide a sophisticated mechanism for writing generic, polymorphic code (i.e. parametric polymorphism). In particular, through the curiously recurring template pattern, it's possible to implement a form of static polymorphism that closely mimics the syntax for overriding virtual functions. Because C++ templates are type-aware and Turing-complete, they can also be used to let the compiler resolve recursive conditionals and generate substantial programs through template metaprogramming. Contrary to some opinion, template code will not generate a bulk code after compilation with the proper compiler settings.


title: C++

text: Variable pointers and references to a base class type in C++ can also refer to objects of any derived classes of that type. This allows arrays and other kinds of containers to hold pointers to objects of differing types (references cannot be directly held in containers). This enables dynamic (run-time) polymorphism, where the referred objects can behave differently, depending on their (actual, derived) types.


title: C++

text: C++ also provides the dynamic_cast operator, which allows code to safely attempt conversion of an object, via a base reference/pointer, to a more derived type: "downcasting". The "attempt" is necessary as often one does not know which derived type is referenced. ("Upcasting", conversion to a more general type, can always be checked/performed at compile-time via static_cast, as ancestral classes are specified in the derived class's interface, visible to all callers.) dynamic_cast relies on run-time type information (RTTI), metadata in the program that enables differentiating types and their relationships. If a dynamic_cast to a pointer fails, the result is the nullptr constant, whereas if the destination is a reference (which cannot be null), the cast throws an exception. Objects "known" to be of a certain derived type can be cast to that with static_cast, bypassing RTTI and the safe runtime type-checking of dynamic_cast, so this should be used only if the programmer is very confident the cast is, and will always be, valid.


title: C++

text: Ordinarily, when a function in a derived class overrides a function in a base class, the function to call is determined by the type of the object. A given function is overridden when there exists no difference in the number or type of parameters between two or more definitions of that function. Hence, at compile time, it may not be possible to determine the type of the object and therefore the correct function to call, given only a base class pointer; the decision is therefore put off until runtime. This is called dynamic dispatch. Virtual member functions or "methods" allow the most specific implementation of the function to be called, according to the actual run-time type of the object. In C++ implementations, this is commonly done using virtual function tables. If the object type is known, this may be bypassed by prepending a fully qualified class name before the function call, but in general calls to virtual functions are resolved at run time.


title: C++

text: In addition to standard member functions, operator overloads and destructors can be virtual. An inexact rule based on practical experience states that if any function in the class is virtual, the destructor should be as well. As the type of an object at its creation is known at compile time, constructors, and by extension copy constructors, cannot be virtual. Nonetheless, a situation may arise where a copy of an object needs to be created when a pointer to a derived object is passed as a pointer to a base object. In such a case, a common solution is to create a clone() (or similar) virtual function that creates and returns a copy of the derived class when called.


title: C++

text: A member function can also be made "pure virtual" by appending it with = 0 after the closing parenthesis and before the semicolon. A class containing a pure virtual function is called an "abstract class". Objects cannot be created from an abstract class; they can only be derived from. Any derived class inherits the virtual function as pure and must provide a non-pure definition of it (and all other pure virtual functions) before objects of the derived class can be created. A program that attempts to create an object of a class with a pure virtual member function or inherited pure virtual member function is ill-formed.


title: C++

text: C++ provides support for anonymous functions, also known as lambda expressions, with the following form:


title: C++

text: If the lambda takes no parameters, and no return type or other specifiers are used, the () can be omitted, that is,


title: C++

text: The [capture] list supports the definition of closures. Such lambda expressions are defined in the standard as syntactic sugar for an unnamed function object.


title: C++

text: Exception handling is used to communicate the existence of a runtime problem or error from where it was detected to where the issue can be handled. It permits this to be done in a uniform manner and separately from the main code, while detecting all errors. Should an error occur, an exception is thrown (raised), which is then caught by the nearest suitable exception handler. The exception causes the current scope to be exited, and also each outer scope (propagation) until a suitable handler is found, calling in turn the destructors of any objects in these exited scopes. At the same time, an exception is presented as an object carrying the data about the detected problem.


title: C++

text: The exception-causing code is placed inside a try block. The exceptions are handled in separate catch blocks (the handlers); each try block can have multiple exception handlers, as it is visible in the example below.


title: C++

text: It is also possible to raise exceptions purposefully, using the throw keyword; these exceptions are handled in the usual way. In some cases, exceptions cannot be used due to technical reasons. One such example is a critical component of an embedded system, where every operation must be guaranteed to complete within a specified amount of time. This cannot be determined with exceptions as no tools exist to determine the maximum time required for an exception to be handled.


title: C++

text: Unlike signal handling, in which the handling function is called from the point of failure, exception handling exits the current scope before the catch block is entered, which may be located in the current function or any of the previous function calls currently on the stack.


title: C++

text: A large part of the C++ library is based on the Standard Template Library (STL). Useful tools provided by the STL include containers as the collections of objects (such as vectors and lists), iterators that provide array-like access to containers, and algorithms that perform operations such as searching and sorting.


title: C++

text: Furthermore, (multi)maps (associative arrays) and (multi)sets are provided, all of which export compatible interfaces. Therefore, using templates it is possible to write generic algorithms that work with any container or on any sequence defined by iterators. As in C, the features of the library are accessed by using the #include directive to include a standard header. The C++ Standard Library provides 105 standard headers, of which 27 are deprecated.


title: C++

text: The standard incorporates the STL that was originally designed by Alexander Stepanov, who experimented with generic algorithms and containers for many years. When he started with C++, he finally found a language where it was possible to create generic algorithms (e.g., STL sort) that perform even better than, for example, the C standard library qsort, thanks to C++ features like using inlining and compile-time binding instead of function pointers. The standard does not refer to it as "STL", as it is merely a part of the standard library, but the term is still widely used to distinguish it from the rest of the standard library (input/output streams, internationalization, diagnostics, the C library subset, etc.).


title: C++

text: Most C++ compilers, and all major ones, provide a standards-conforming implementation of the C++ standard library.


title: C++

text: The C++ Core Guidelines are an initiative led by Bjarne Stroustrup, the inventor of C++, and Herb Sutter, the convener and chair of the C++ ISO Working Group, to help programmers write 'Modern C++' by using best practices for the language standards C++11 and newer, and to help developers of compilers and static checking tools to create rules for catching bad programming practices.


title: C++

text: The Guidelines are accompanied by the Guideline Support Library (GSL), a header only library of types and functions to implement the Core Guidelines and static checker tools for enforcing Guideline rules.


title: C++

text: To give compiler vendors greater freedom, the C++ standards committee decided not to dictate the implementation of name mangling, exception handling, and other implementation-specific features. The downside of this decision is that object code produced by different compilers is expected to be incompatible. There were, however, attempts to standardize compilers for particular machines or operating systems (for example C++ ABI), though they seem to be largely abandoned now.


title: C++

text: C++ is often considered to be a superset of C but this is not strictly true. Most C code can easily be made to compile correctly in C++ but there are a few differences that cause some valid C code to be invalid or behave differently in C++. For example, C allows implicit conversion from void* to other pointer types but C++ does not (for type safety reasons). Also, C++ defines many new keywords, such as new and class, which may be used as identifiers (for example, variable names) in a C program.


title: C++

text: Some incompatibilities have been removed by the 1999 revision of the C standard (C99), which now supports C++ features such as line comments (//) and declarations mixed with code. On the other hand, C99 introduced a number of new features that C++ did not support that were incompatible or redundant in C++, such as variable-length arrays, native complex-number types (however, the std::complex class in the C++ standard library provides similar functionality, although not code-compatible), designated initializers, compound literals, and the restrict keyword. Some of the C99-introduced features were included in the subsequent version of the C++ standard, C++11 (out of those which were not redundant). However, the C++11 standard introduces new incompatibilities, such as disallowing assignment of a string literal to a character pointer, which remains valid C.


title: C++

text: To intermix C and C++ code, any function declaration or definition that is to be called from/used both in C and C++ must be declared with C linkage by placing it within an extern "C" {/*...*/} block. Such a function may not rely on features depending on name mangling (i.e., function overloading).


title: C++

text: Despite its widespread adoption, some notable programmers have criticized the C++ language, including Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Joshua Bloch, Ken Thompson and Donald Knuth.


title: C++

text: One of the most often criticised points of C++ is its perceived complexity as a language, with the criticism that a large number of non-orthogonal features in practice necessitates restricting code to a subset of C++, thus eschewing the readability benefits of common style and idioms. As expressed by Joshua Bloch: I think C++ was pushed well beyond its complexity threshold, and yet there are a lot of people programming it. But what you do is you force people to subset it. So almost every shop that I know of that uses C++ says, "Yes, we're using C++ but we're not doing multiple-implementation inheritance and we're not using operator overloading.” There are just a bunch of features that you're not going to use because the complexity of the resulting code is too high. And I don't think it's good when you have to start doing that. You lose this programmer portability where everyone can read everyone else's code, which I think is such a good thing.


title: C++

text: Donald Knuth (1993, commenting on pre-standardized C++), who said of Edsger Dijkstra that "to think of programming in C++" "would make him physically ill": The problem that I have with them today is that... C++ is too complicated. At the moment, it's impossible for me to write portable code that I believe would work on lots of different systems, unless I avoid all exotic features. Whenever the C++ language designers had two competing ideas as to how they should solve some problem, they said "OK, we'll do them both". So the language is too baroque for my taste.


title: C++

text: Ken Thompson, who was a colleague of Stroustrup at Bell Labs, gives his assessment: It certainly has its good points. But by and large I think it's a bad language. It does a lot of things half well and it's just a garbage heap of ideas that are mutually exclusive. Everybody I know, whether it's personal or corporate, selects a subset and these subsets are different. So it's not a good language to transport an algorithm—to say, "I wrote it; here, take it." It's way too big, way too complex. And it's obviously built by a committee.


title: C++

text: Stroustrup campaigned for years and years and years, way beyond any sort of technical contributions he made to the language, to get it adopted and used. And he sort of ran all the standards committees with a whip and a chair. And he said "no" to no one. He put every feature in that language that ever existed. It wasn't cleanly designed—it was just the union of everything that came along. And I think it suffered drastically from that.


title: C++

text: However Brian Kernighan, also a colleague at Bell Labs, disputes this assessment: C++ has been enormously influential. ... Lots of people say C++ is too big and too complicated etc. etc. but in fact it is a very powerful language and pretty much everything that is in there is there for a really sound reason: it is not somebody doing random invention, it is actually people trying to solve real world problems. Now a lot of the programs that we take for granted today, that we just use, are C++ programs.


title: C++

text: Stroustrup himself comments that C++ semantics are much cleaner than its syntax: "within C++, there is a much smaller and cleaner language struggling to get out".


title: C++

text: Other complaints may include a lack of reflection or garbage collection, long compilation times, perceived feature creep, and verbose error messages, particularly from template metaprogramming.


title: Kris Jenner

text: Kristen Mary Jenner ( Houghton , formerly Kardashian; born November 5, 1955) is an American media personality, socialite, and businesswoman. She rose to fame starring in the reality television series "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" (2007–2021).


title: Kris Jenner

text: She has four children from her first marriage to lawyer Robert Kardashian: Kourtney, Kim, Khloé and Robert, and two children from her second marriage to television personality and retired Olympic Games medalist Bruce Jenner (now Caitlyn): Kendall and Kylie.


title: Kris Jenner

text: Jenner was born in San Diego, California, on November 5, 1955, the elder of two children born to Mary Jo "M. J." Shannon (née Campbell; born 1934), who owned a children's clothing store, and Robert True "Bob" Houghton (1931–1975), an engineer. When she was seven years old, M. J. and Bob divorced, and she and her younger sister, Karen Casey (née Houghton; born 1958), were raised by their mother. M. J. would eventually remarry, to businessman Harry Shannon (1926–2003), who helped raise her and Karen. By her mother's marriage to Harry, she gained a half-brother, Steven "Steve" Shannon.


title: Kris Jenner

text: Three months after moving to Oxnard, California, Shannon's business partner allegedly left with all the company's capital, so the family moved back to San Diego. In San Diego, Jenner worked at Shannon & Company, a children's clothing store that belonged to her mother. Jenner attended Clairemont High School and graduated in 1973. In 1975, Jenner lost her biological father Robert Houghton in a car crash at nineteen years old. She worked for American Airlines as a flight attendant for a year in 1976.


title: Kris Jenner

text: Jenner met with Ryan Seacrest in 2007 to pursue a reality television show based on her family. Seacrest, who had his own production company, decided to develop the idea, having the popular family-based show "The Osbournes" in his mind. Jenner further commented on the possible series:


title: Kris Jenner

text: The show eventually was picked up to air on the E! cable network, with Jenner acting as the executive producer. The series focused on the personal and professional lives of the Kardashian–Jenner blended families. The series debuted on October 14, 2007 and became one of the longest-running reality television shows in the country. The final (twentieth) season premiered on March 18, 2021. The show resulted in the development of several spin-offs, such as "Kourtney and Khloé Take Miami" (2009), "Kourtney and Kim Take New York" (2011), "Khloé & Lamar" (2011), "Rob & Chyna" (2016), and "Life of Kylie" (2017)


title: Kris Jenner

text: Jenner hosted a pop culture-driven daytime talk show, "Kris". The series began its six-week trial summer run on several Fox-owned stations on July 15, 2013.


title: Kris Jenner

text: Kanye West, her then-son-in-law through his marriage to Kim, revealed the first public picture of Jenner's granddaughter North West on the show. The show's six-week trial run was not extended.


title: Kris Jenner

text: On December 31, 2021, it was announced that Jenner and her family would be appearing in a new series on Hulu called "The Kardashians". It debuted on April 14, 2022. In July 2022, Hulu announced that the show would be returning for a second season which aired on September 22, 2022.


title: Kris Jenner

text: Jenner runs her own production company, Jenner Communications, which is based in Los Angeles. Since before the start of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians", she has managed her daughters' Kim, Kourtney, Khloe, Kendall, and Kylie's career. She also is involved with the business management of her other daughters and son.


title: Kris Jenner

text: Jenner opened a children's boutique in 2004 with her eldest daughter, Kourtney. The boutique was called "Smooch" and was open for almost six years before closing down in 2009. In 2011, Jenner launched a clothing line, Kris Jenner Kollection with QVC. Jenner had previously sold exercise equipment with QVC in the 1990s. In April 2020, Jenner teamed up with daughter Kim to launch a perfume collaboration titled KKW x Kris.


title: Kris Jenner

text: Jenner's autobiography, "Kris Jenner... and All Things Kardashian", was released in November 2011. She later wrote a cookbook entitled "In the Kitchen with Kris: A Kollection of Kardashian-Jenner Family Favorites", which was released in October 2014.


title: Kris Jenner

text: Jenner has often been referred to as the "matriarch" of the family. Dimitri Ehrlich of "Interview" magazine called her "the matriarch of the Kardashian-Jenner brood" and the "21st century's preeminent female pop-cultural brand-builder." Jenner explained her operations as a businesswoman in her memoir "Kris Jenner...And All Things Kardashian:" "I started to look at our careers like pieces on a chessboard...Every day, I woke up and walked into my office and asked myself, 'What move do you need to make today?' It was very calculated. My business decisions and strategies were very intentional, definite and planned to the nth degree."


title: Kris Jenner

text: Jenner has been featured on the covers of numerous lifestyle and fashion magazines, including "CR Fashion Book", "Redbook", "Cosmopolitan", "Harper's Bazaar", "The Hollywood Reporter, Es Magazine", "Variety", "New You," "Haute Living," "WSJ. Magazine" and "Stellar".


title: Kris Jenner

text: Jenner's first marriage was to lawyer Robert Kardashian (who later became widely known for his early legal representation of O. J. Simpson) on July 8, 1978. They have four children: daughters Kourtney (born 1979), Kim (born 1980), Khloé (born 1984), and son Rob (born 1987). They divorced in March 1991 but remained close friends until his death from esophageal cancer in 2003.


title: Kris Jenner

text: In 2012, Jenner confessed that she had an affair with former soccer player and animator Todd Waterman during her marriage to Kardashian. She referred to Waterman as "Ryan" in her autobiography, but he revealed his identity on his own. They had an encounter on "Keeping up with the Kardashians" while Kris was having a tennis lesson.


title: Kris Jenner

text: In April 1991, one month after her divorce from Kardashian, Jenner married her second spouse, retired Olympian Bruce Jenner, who publicly came out as a transgender woman in 2015, taking the name Caitlyn. They have two daughters together: Kendall (born 1995) and Kylie (born 1997); in her autobiography, Jenner explained that she named her daughter Kendall Nicole after the late Nicole Brown Simpson. By marriage to Bruce, Jenner also had four stepchildren: Burt, Cassandra "Casey", Brandon, and Brody.


title: Kris Jenner

text: The Jenners announced their separation in October 2013, and on September 22, 2014, Kris filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. The divorce became final on March 23, 2015, because of a six-month state legal requirement. Jenner described the breakup with Caitlyn as "the most passive-aggressive thing", saying that while she had known of Caitlyn's use of hormones in the 1980s, "there wasn't a gender issue. Nobody mentioned a gender issue."


title: Kris Jenner

text: Jenner and her family suffered emotional turmoil during the O. J. Simpson trial (1994–1995), later described as the "Trial of the Century." Jenner was a good friend of O.J.'s ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and Jenner's first husband, Robert Kardashian, was one of O.J. Simpson's "Dream Team" of defense lawyers during the trial.


title: Kris Jenner

text: She was portrayed by American actress Selma Blair in the FX limited series "", which premiered in February 2016.


title: Kris Jenner

text: Jenner and Pastor Brad Johnson founded the California Community Church in 2012. It originally was called the Life Change Community Church, located in Agoura Hills, California.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The Burj Khalifa (; , , Khalifa Tower), known as the Burj Dubai prior to its inauguration in 2010, is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It is known for being the world’s tallest building. With a total height of 829.8 m (2,722 ft, or just over half a mile) and a roof height (excluding antenna, but including a 242.6 m spire) of , the Burj Khalifa has been the tallest structure and building in the world since its topping out in 2009, supplanting Taipei 101, the previous holder of that status.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: Construction of the Burj Khalifa began in 2004, with the exterior completed five years later in 2009. The primary structure is reinforced concrete and some of the structural steel for the building originated from the Palace of the Republic in East Berlin, the former East German parliament. The building was opened in 2010 as part of a new development called Downtown Dubai. It was designed to be the centerpiece of large-scale, mixed-use development. The decision to construct the building was based on the government's decision to diversify from an oil-based economy, and for Dubai to gain international recognition. The building is named in honor of the former president of the United Arab Emirates, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan; Abu Dhabi and the UAE government lent Dubai money to pay its debts. The building broke numerous height records, including its designation as the tallest building in the world.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: Burj Khalifa was designed by a team led by Adrian Smith of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the firm that designed the Sears Tower in Chicago, a previous record holder for the world's tallest building. Hyder Consulting was chosen to be the supervising engineer with NORR Group Consultants International Limited chosen to supervise the architecture of the project. The design is derived from the Islamic architecture of the region, such as in the Great Mosque of Samarra. The Y-shaped tripartite floor geometry is designed to optimize residential and hotel space. A buttressed central core and wings are used to support the height of the building. Although this design was derived from Tower Palace III, the Burj Khalifa's central core houses all vertical transportation except egress stairs within each of the wings. The structure also features a cladding system which is designed to withstand Dubai's hot summer temperatures. It contains a total of 57 elevators and 8 escalators.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: At a certain point in the architectural and engineering process, the original Emaar developers experienced financial problems and required more money and economic funding. Sheikh Khalifa, the then-ruler of the United Arab Emirates, granted monetary aid and funding, hence the changing of the name from "Burj Dubai" to "Burj Khalifa". The concept of profitability derived from building high-density developments and malls around the landmark has proven successful. Its surrounding malls, hotels, and condominiums in Downtown Dubai have generated the most revenue from the project as a whole, while the Burj Khalifa itself made little or no profit.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The critical reception of Burj Khalifa has been generally positive, and the building has received many awards. However, there were numerous complaints concerning migrant workers from South Asia who were the primary building labour force. These centered on low wages and the practice of confiscating passports until duties were complete.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: Construction began on 12 January 2004, with the exterior of the structure completed on 1 October 2009. The building officially opened on 4 January 2010 and is part of the Downtown Dubai development at the 'First Interchange' along Sheikh Zayed Road, near Dubai's main business district. The tower's architecture and engineering were performed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill of Chicago, with Adrian Smith as chief architect, and Bill Baker as a chief structural engineer. The primary contractor was Samsung C&T of South Korea, together with local company Arabtec and the Belgian group BESIX.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: Burj Khalifa was designed to be the centerpiece of a large-scale, mixed-use development to include 30,000 homes, nine hotels (including The Address Downtown Dubai), of parkland, at least 19 residential skyscrapers, the Dubai Mall, and the artificial Burj Khalifa Lake. The decision to build Burj Khalifa was reportedly based on the government's decision to diversify from an oil-based economy to one that is service and tourism based. According to officials, projects like Burj Khalifa needed to be built to garner more international recognition and hence investment. "He (Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum) wanted to put Dubai on the map with something really sensational," said Jacqui Josephson, a tourism and VIP delegations executive at Nakheel Properties. The tower was known as Burj Dubai ("Dubai Tower") until its official opening in January 2010. It was renamed in honour of the ruler of Abu Dhabi, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan; Abu Dhabi and the federal government of UAE lent Dubai tens of billions of US dollars so that Dubai could pay its debts – Dubai borrowed at least $80 billion for construction projects. In the 2000s, Dubai started diversifying its economy but it suffered from an economic crisis in 2007–2010, leaving large-scale projects already in construction abandoned.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: There are unconfirmed reports of several planned height increases since its inception. Originally proposed as a virtual clone of the Grollo Tower proposal for Melbourne, Australia's Docklands waterfront development, the tower was redesigned by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Marshall Strabala, a Skidmore, Owings and Merrill architect who worked on the project until 2006, said in late 2008 that Burj Khalifa was designed to be tall.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The architect who designed it, Adrian Smith, felt that the uppermost section of the building did not culminate elegantly with the rest of the structure, so he sought and received approval to increase its height. It was stated that this change did not add any floors, which fit with Smith's attempts to make the crown more slender. The building opened on 4 January 2010.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The tower was designed by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill (SOM), which also designed the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) in Chicago and the One World Trade Center in New York City. Burj Khalifa uses the bundled tube design of the Willis Tower, invented by Fazlur Rahman Khan. Due to its tubular system, proportionally only half the amount of steel was used in the construction, compared to the Empire State Building. Khan's contributions to the design of tall buildings have had a profound impact on architecture and engineering. It would be difficult to find any worldwide practices in the design of tall buildings that have not been directly or indirectly influenced by his work. The design is reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright's vision for The Illinois, a mile-high skyscraper designed for Chicago, as well as Chicago's Lake Point Tower. When Adrian Smith was conceiving the project at SOM, he looked out his office window toward Lake Point Tower's curved three-wing layout and thought, "There's the prototype". According to Strabala, Burj Khalifa was designed based on the 73 floor Tower Palace Three, an all-residential building in Seoul. In its early planning, Burj Khalifa was intended to be entirely residential.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: After the original design by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, Emaar Properties chose Hyder Consulting to be the supervising engineer and NORR Group Consultants International Ltd to supervise the architecture of the project. Hyder was selected for their expertise in structural and MEP (mechanical, electrical and plumbing) engineering. Hyder Consulting's role was to supervise construction, certify the architect's design, and be the engineer and architect of record to the UAE authorities. NORR's role was the supervision of all architectural components including on-site supervision during the construction and design of a 6-story addition to the office annex building for architectural documentation. NORR was also responsible for the architectural integration drawings for the Armani Hotel included in the Tower. Emaar Properties also engaged GHD, an international multidisciplinary consulting firm, to act as an independent verification and testing authority for concrete and steelwork.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The design is derived from Islamic architecture. As the tower rises from the flat desert base, there are 27 setbacks in a spiral pattern, decreasing the cross-section of the tower as it rises and creating convenient outdoor terraces. These setbacks are arranged and aligned in a way that minimizes vibration wind loading from eddy currents and vortices. At the top, the central core emerges and is sculpted to form a finishing spire. At its tallest point, the tower sways a total of .


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The spire of Burj Khalifa is composed of more than of structural steel. The central pinnacle pipe weighs and has a height of . The spire also houses communications equipment. This spire is widely considered vanity height, since very little of its space is usable. Without the spire, Burj Khalifa would be tall. This was reported in a Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat study, which notes that the empty spire "could be a skyscraper on its own". Such a skyscraper, if located in Europe, would be the 11th tallest building on that continent.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: In 2009 architects announced that more than 1,000 pieces of art would adorn the interiors of Burj Khalifa, while the residential lobby of Burj Khalifa would display the work of Jaume Plensa.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The cladding system consists of of more than 26,000 reflective glass panels and aluminium and textured stainless steel spandrel panels with vertical tubular fins. The architectural glass provides solar and thermal performance as well as an anti-glare shield for the intense desert sun, extreme desert temperatures and strong winds. The glass covers more than in area. The Burj's typical curtain wall panels measure wide by high and weigh about each, with wider panels near the building's edges and taller ones near the top.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The exterior temperature at the top of the building is thought to be 6 °C (11 °F) cooler than at its base.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: A 304-room Armani Hotel, the first of four by Armani, occupies 15 of the lower 39 floors. The hotel was supposed to open on 18 March 2010, but after several delays, it finally opened to the public on 27 April 2010. The corporate suites and offices were also supposed to open from March onwards, yet the hotel and observation deck remained the only parts of the building which were open in April 2010.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The sky lobbies on the 43rd and 76th floors house swimming pools. Floors 20 through 108 have 900 private residential apartments (which, according to the developer, sold out within eight hours of being on the market). An outdoor zero-entry swimming pool is located on the 76th floor of the tower. Corporate offices and suites fill most of the remaining floors, except for the 122nd, 123rd, and 124th, where the "At.mosphere" restaurant, sky lobby, and an indoor and outdoor observation deck are located respectively. In January 2010, it was planned that Burj Khalifa would receive its first residents in February 2010.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The building has 57 elevators and 8 escalators. The elevators have a capacity of 12 to 14 people per cabin, the fastest rising and descending at up to for double-deck elevators. However, the world's fastest single-deck elevator still belongs to Taipei 101 at . Engineers had considered installing the world's first triple-deck elevators, but the final design called for double-deck elevators. The double-deck elevators are equipped with entertainment features such as LCD displays to serve visitors during their travel to the observation deck. The building has 2,909 stairs from the ground floor to the 160th floor.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The Burj Khalifa's water system supplies an average of of water per day through of pipes. An additional of piping serves the fire emergency system, and supplies chilled water for the air conditioning system.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The air conditioning system draws air from the upper floors where the air is cooler and cleaner than on the ground. At peak cooling times, the tower's cooling is , equivalent to that provided by of melting ice in one day. Water is collected via a condensate collection system and is used to irrigate the nearby park.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: To wash the 24,348 windows, totaling of glass, the building has three horizontal tracks, each holding a bucket machine. Above level 109, and up to tier 27, traditional cradles from davits are used. The top of the building is cleaned by a crew that uses ropes to descend from the top to gain access. Under normal conditions, when all building maintenance units are operational, it takes 36 workers three to four months to clean the entire exterior.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: Unmanned machines clean the top 27 additional tiers and the glass spire. The cleaning system was developed in Melbourne, Australia, by CoxGomyl, a manufacturer of building maintenance units, at a cost of A$8 million.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: Outside the Burj Khalifa, WET Enterprises designed a fountain system at a cost of Dh 800 million (US$217 million). Illuminated by 6,600 lights and 50 coloured projectors, it is long and shoots water into the air while accompanied by a range of classical to contemporary Arabic and other music. It is the world's largest choreographed fountain. On 26 October 2008, Emaar announced that based on results of a naming contest the fountain would be called the Dubai Fountain.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: An outdoor observation deck, named "At the Top", opened on 5 January 2010 on the 124th floor. At , it was the highest outdoor observation deck in the world when it opened. Although it was surpassed in December 2011 by "Cloud Top 488" on the Canton Tower, Guangzhou at , Burj Khalifa opened the 148th floor SKY level at , once again giving it the highest observation deck in the world on 15 October 2014, until the Shanghai Tower opened in June 2016 with an observation deck at a height of 561 metres. The 124th floor observation deck also features the electronic telescope, an augmented reality device developed by Gsmprjct° of Montréal, which allows visitors to view the surrounding landscape in real-time, and to view previously saved images such as those taken at different times of day or under different weather conditions. To reduce the daily rush of sightseers, management allows visitors to purchase tickets in advance for a specific date and time, at a 75% discount on tickets purchased on the spot.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: On 8 February 2010, the observation deck was closed to the public for two months after power-supply problems caused an elevator to become stuck between floors, trapping a group of tourists for 45 minutes.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: When the tide is low and visibility is high, people can see the shores of Iran (which is around away) from the top of the skyscraper.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: Burj Khalifa is surrounded by an park designed by landscape architects SWA Group. Like the tower, the park's design was based on the flower of the "Hymenocallis", a desert plant. At the centre of the park is the water room, which is a series of pools and water jet fountains. Benches and signs incorporate images of Burj Khalifa and the "Hymenocallis" flower.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The plants are watered by water collected from the building's cooling system. The system provides annually. WET Enterprises, who also developed the Dubai Fountain, developed the park's six water features.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: On the higher floors, the sun can still be seen for several minutes after it has set at ground level. This has led Dubai clerics to rule that those living above the 80th floor should wait 2 additional minutes to break their Ramadan fast, and those living above the 150th floor, 3 minutes.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The tower was constructed by Samsung C&T from South Korea, which also did work on the Petronas Twin Towers and Taipei 101. Samsung C&T built the tower in a joint venture with BESIX from Belgium and Arabtec from the UAE. Turner was the project manager on the main construction contract. Hong Kong-based Far East Aluminum combined to provide the exterior cladding for Burj Khalifa.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The contractor and the engineer of record was Hyder Consulting. Under UAE law, the contractor and the engineer of record is jointly and severally liable for the performance of Burj Khalifa.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The primary structure is reinforced concrete. Putzmeister created a new, super high-pressure trailer concrete pump, the BSA 14000 SHP-D, for this project. Burj Khalifa's construction used of concrete and of steel rebar, and construction took 22 million man-hours. In May 2008 Putzmeister pumped concrete with more than 21 MPA ultimate compressive strength of gravel to surpass the 600 meters weight of the effective area of each column from the foundation to the next fourth level, and the rest was by metal columns "jacketed" or "covered" with concrete to a then world record delivery height of , the 156th floor. Three tower cranes were used during the construction of the uppermost levels, each capable of lifting a 25-tonne load. The remaining structure above was constructed of lighter steel.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: In 2003, 33 test holes were drilled to study the strength of the bedrock underlying the structure. ""Weak to very weak sandstone and siltstone"" was found, just metres below the surface. Samples were taken from test holes drilled to a depth of 140 metres, finding weak to very weak rock all the way. The study described the site as part of a ""seismically active area"". Another challenging element was the shamal which often creates sandstorms.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: Over of concrete, weighing more than were used to construct the concrete and steel foundation, which features 192 piles; each pile is 1.5 metre in diameter by 43 m in length, buried more than deep. The foundation was designed to support the total building weight of approximately . This weight was then divided by the compressive strength of concrete which is 30 MPa which yielded 450 sq. meters of vertical normal effective area, which then yielded 12 meters by 12 meters dimensions. A cathodic protection system is under the concrete to neutralize the sulphate and chloride-rich groundwater and prevent corrosion.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: During the construction of the Burj Khalifa, over 35,000 tonnes of structural steel which held the Palace of the Republic, the former parliament building of the German Democratic Republic, the Volkskammer, in East Berlin together were shipped to Dubai in 2008.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The Burj Khalifa is highly compartmentalised. Pressurized, air-conditioned refuge floors are located every 13 floors (on floors G, 13, 26, 39, 52, etc.) where people can shelter on their long walk down to safety in case of an emergency or fire.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: Special mixes of concrete were made to withstand the extreme pressures of the massive building weight; as is typical with reinforced concrete construction, each batch of concrete was tested to ensure it could withstand certain pressures. CTLGroup, working for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, conducted the creep and shrinkage testing critical for the structural analysis of the building.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The consistency of the concrete used in the project was essential. It was difficult to create a concrete that could withstand both the thousands of tonnes bearing down on it and Persian Gulf temperatures that can reach . To combat this problem, the concrete was not poured during the day. Instead, during the summer months, ice was added to the mixture and it was poured at night when the air was cooler and the humidity was higher. Cooler concrete cures more evenly and is, therefore, less likely to set too quickly and crack. Any significant cracks could have put the entire project in jeopardy.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: In March 2009, Mohamed Ali Alabbar, chairman of the project's developer, Emaar Properties, said office space pricing at Burj Khalifa reached US$4,000 per sq ft (over US$43,000 per m) and the Armani Residences, also in Burj Khalifa, sold for US$3,500 per sq ft (over US$37,500 per m). He estimated the total cost for the project to be about US$1.5 billion.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The project's completion coincided with the financial crisis of 2007–2008, and with vast overbuilding in the country, leading to high vacancies and foreclosures. With Dubai mired in debt from its huge ambitions, the government was forced to seek multibillion-dollar bailouts from its oil-rich neighbor Abu Dhabi. Subsequently, in a surprise move at its opening ceremony, the tower was renamed Burj Khalifa, said to honour the UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan for his crucial support.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: Because of the slumping demand in Dubai's property market, the rents in the Burj Khalifa plummeted 40% some ten months after its opening. Out of 900 apartments in the tower, 825 were still empty at that time. However, over the next two and a half years, overseas investors steadily began to purchase the available apartments and office space. By October 2012, Emaar reported that around 80% of the apartments were occupied.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The ceremony was broadcast live on a giant screen on Burj Park Island and on smaller screens elsewhere. Hundreds of media outlets from around the world reported live from the scene. In addition to the media presence, 6,000 guests were expected.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The opening was held on 4 January 2010. The ceremony featured a display of 10,000 fireworks, light beams projected on and around the tower, and further sound, light and water effects. The celebratory lighting was designed by UK lighting designers Speirs and Major Associates. Using the 868 powerful stroboscope lights that are integrated into the façade and spire of the tower, different lighting sequences were choreographed, together with more than 50 different combinations of other effects.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: Within 17 months of the building's official opening, a man described as "an Asian in his mid-30s", who worked at one of the companies in the tower, died by suicide on 10 May 2011 by jumping from the 147th floor. He fell 39 floors, landing on a deck on the 108th floor. Dubai police confirmed the act as a suicide, reporting that "[they] also came to know that the man decided to commit suicide as his company refused to grant leave."


title: Burj Khalifa

text: On 18 May 2015, Dubai police disputed a report that a Portuguese national who was in Dubai on a tourist visa fell to her death from Burj Khalifa's "At the Top SKY" observation deck on the 148th floor, and said that this incident took place in Jumeirah Lakes Towers. A Dubai coroner's report stated her body was found on the third floor of the Burj Khalifa. Emails obtained under the Freedom of Information act from Portugal's embassy in the UAE also confirmed that she had committed suicide from the 148th floor of the Burj Khalifa.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The Burj Khalifa was built primarily by workers from South Asia and East Asia. This is generally because the current generation of UAE locals prefer governmental jobs and do not have an attitude favouring private sector employment. On 17 June 2008, there were about 7,500 skilled workers employed at the construction site. Press reports indicated in 2006 that skilled carpenters at the site earned £4.34 a day, and labourers earned £2.84. According to a BBC investigation and a Human Rights Watch report, the workers were housed in abysmal conditions, and worked long hours for low pay. During construction, only one construction-related death was reported. However, workplace injuries and fatalities in the UAE are "poorly documented", according to Human Rights Watch.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: In March 2006 about 2,500 workers, upset over buses that were delayed for the end of their shifts, protested and triggered a riot, damaging cars, offices, computers, and construction equipment. A Dubai Interior Ministry official said the rioters caused almost £500,000 in damage. Most of the workers involved in the riot returned the following day but refused to work.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: Emaar New Year's Eve is an annual event held every 31 December at Burj Khalifa, the World's tallest building in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, organized by Emaar.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: Emaar New Year's Eve has won two Guinness World Records, including 'Largest LED-Illuminated Facade' in 2015 and 2019.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: In 2021, Emaar celebrated 'togetherness' in honor of frontline heroes during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The Emaar New Year's Eve fireworks celebration originated in 2010 with the inauguration of the world's tallest building, Burj Khalifa. The celebration was broadcast live to more than two million people and lasted for three minutes. An accompanying sound and light show was choreographed by The Dubai Fountain.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: Since 2011, the broadcasting rights have been held by Dubai Media Incorporated (DMI) and Dubai TV. The event is also broadcast live around the World.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: In 2017 and 2018, Emaar New Year's Eve was broadcast live on Twitter, and YouTube. In 2020, it was broadcast live for the first time on Zoom.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: The building has been used by several experienced BASE jumpers for authorised and unauthorised BASE jumping:


title: Burj Khalifa

text: On 28 March 2011, Alain "Spiderman" Robert scaled the outside of Burj Khalifa. The climb to the top of the spire took six hours. To comply with UAE safety laws, Robert, who usually climbs in free solo style, used a rope and harness.


title: Burj Khalifa

text: In June 2010, Burj Khalifa was the recipient of the 2010 "Best Tall Building Middle East & Africa" award by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. On 28 September 2010 Burj Khalifa won the award for the best project of the year at the Middle East Architect Awards 2010. Awards Chair Gordon Gill, of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, said:


title: North Korea

text: North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and Tumen rivers, and South Korea to the south at the Korean Demilitarized Zone. North Korea's border with South Korea is a disputed border as both countries claim the entirety of the Korean Peninsula. The country's western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eastern border is defined by the Sea of Japan. North Korea, like its southern counterpart, claims to be the legitimate government of the entire peninsula and adjacent islands. Pyongyang is the capital and largest city.


title: North Korea

text: In 1910, Korea was annexed by the Empire of Japan. In 1945, after the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II, Korea was divided into two zones along the 38th parallel, with the north occupied by the Soviet Union and the south occupied by the United States. Negotiations on reunification failed, and in 1948, separate governments were formed: the socialist and Soviet-aligned Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north, and the capitalist, Western-aligned Republic of Korea in the south. The Korean War began in 1950, with an invasion by North Korea, and lasted until 1953. The Korean Armistice Agreement brought about a ceasefire and established a demilitarized zone (DMZ), but no formal peace treaty has ever been signed.


title: North Korea

text: Post-war North Korea benefited greatly from economic aid and expertise provided by other Eastern Bloc countries, particularly the Soviet Union and China. However, relations between North Korea and the Soviet Union soured after the ascension of Nikita Khrushchev to the Soviet premiership in 1953, as Khrushchev denounced Stalinism while Kim Il-sung, North Korea's first leader, upheld it. Kim briefly turned to China in the late 1950s before purging both pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese elements from the ruling Workers' Party of Korea and promoting his personal philosophy of "Juche" as the state ideology. From the 1970s, South Korea's economy began to boom whilst North Korea entered a state of stagnation. Pyongyang's international isolation sharply accelerated from the 1980s onwards as the Cold War came to an end and China opened up to the West. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 then brought about a full-scale collapse of the North Korean economy. From 1994 to 1998, North Korea suffered a famine that resulted in the deaths of between 240,000 and 420,000 people, and the population continues to suffer from malnutrition.


title: North Korea

text: According to Article 1 of the state constitution, North Korea is an "independent socialist state". It holds elections, though they have been described by independent observers as sham elections, as North Korea is a totalitarian dictatorship, with a comprehensive cult of personality around the Kim family. The Workers' Party of Korea is the ruling party of North Korea and leads the Democratic Front for the Reunification of Korea, the sole legal political movement in the country. According to Article 3 of the constitution, Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism is the official ideology of North Korea. The means of production are owned by the state through state-run enterprises and collectivized farms. Most services—such as healthcare, education, housing, and food production—are subsidized or state-funded.


title: North Korea

text: North Korea follows "Songun", or "military first" policy, for its Korean People's Army. It possesses nuclear weapons, and is the country with the second highest number of military and paramilitary personnel, with a total of 7.769 million active, reserve, and paramilitary personnel, or approximately of its population. Its active duty army of 1.28 million soldiers is the fourth-largest in the world, consisting of of its population. A 2014 inquiry by the United Nations into abuses of human rights in North Korea concluded that "the gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world," with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch holding similar views. The North Korean government denies these abuses. In addition to being a member of the United Nations since 1991, North Korea is also a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, G77, and the ASEAN Regional Forum.


title: North Korea

text: The name "Korea" is derived from the name "Goryeo" (also spelled "Koryŏ"). The name "Goryeo" itself was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo (Koguryŏ) which was one of the great powers in East Asia during its time. The 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo, and thus inherited its name, which was pronounced by visiting Persian merchants as "Korea". The modern spelling of Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the Dutch East India Company's Hendrick Hamel.


title: North Korea

text: After the division of the country into North and South Korea, the two sides used different terms to refer to Korea: "Chosun" or "Joseon" () in North Korea, and "Hanguk" () in South Korea. In 1948, North Korea adopted "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" (, "Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk"; ) as its new legal name. In the wider world, because the government controls the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, it is commonly called "North Korea" to distinguish it from South Korea, which is officially called the "Republic of Korea" in English. Both governments consider themselves to be the legitimate government of the whole of Korea. For this reason, the people do not consider themselves as 'North Koreans' but as Koreans in the same divided country as their compatriots in the South, and foreign visitors are discouraged from using the former term.


title: North Korea

text: After the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, Korea was ruled by Japan from 1910 to 1945. Korean resistance groups known as Dongnipgun (Liberation Army) operated along the Sino-Korean border, fighting guerrilla warfare against Japanese forces. Some of them took part in allied action in China and parts of South East Asia. One of the guerrilla leaders was the communist Kim Il-sung, who later became the first leader of North Korea.


title: North Korea

text: After the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II in 1945, the Korean Peninsula was divided into two zones along the 38th parallel, with the northern half of the peninsula occupied by the Soviet Union and the southern half by the United States. Negotiations on reunification failed. Soviet general Terentii Shtykov recommended the establishment of the Soviet Civil Authority in October 1945, and supported Kim Il-sung as chairman of the Provisional People's Committee for North Korea, established in February 1946. In September 1946, South Korean citizens rose up against the Allied Military Government. In April 1948, an uprising of the Jeju islanders was violently crushed. The South declared its statehood in May 1948 and two months later the ardent anti-communist Syngman Rhee became its ruler. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea was established in the North on 9 September 1948. Shtykov served as the first Soviet ambassador, while Kim Il-sung became premier.


title: North Korea

text: Soviet forces withdrew from the North in 1948, and most American forces withdrew from the South in 1949. Ambassador Shtykov suspected Rhee was planning to invade the North and was sympathetic to Kim's goal of Korean unification under socialism. The two successfully lobbied Joseph Stalin to support a quick war against the South, which culminated in the outbreak of the Korean War.


title: North Korea

text: The military of North Korea invaded the South on 25 June 1950, and swiftly overran most of the country. The United Nations Command (UNC) was subsequently established following the UN Security Council's recognition of North Korean aggression against South Korea. The motion passed because the Soviet Union, a close ally of North Korea and a member of the UN Security Council, was boycotting the UN over its recognition of the Republic of China rather than the People's Republic of China. The UNC, led by the United States, intervened to defend the South, and rapidly advanced into North Korea. As they neared the border with China, Chinese forces intervened on behalf of North Korea, shifting the balance of the war again. Fighting ended on 27 July 1953, with an armistice that approximately restored the original boundaries between North and South Korea, but no peace treaty was signed. Approximately 3 million people died in the Korean War, with a higher proportional civilian death toll than World War II or the Vietnam War. In both per capita and absolute terms, North Korea was the country most devastated by the war, which resulted in the death of an estimated 12–15% of the North Korean population ( 10 million), "a figure close to or surpassing the proportion of Soviet citizens killed in World War II," according to Charles K. Armstrong. As a result of the war, almost every substantial building in North Korea was destroyed. Some have referred to the conflict as a civil war, with other factors involved.


title: North Korea

text: A heavily guarded demilitarized zone (DMZ) still divides the peninsula, and an anti-communist and anti-North Korea sentiment remains in South Korea. Since the war, the United States has maintained a strong military presence in the South which is depicted by the North Korean government as an imperialist occupation force. It claims that the Korean War was caused by the United States and South Korea.


title: North Korea

text: The post-war 1950s and 1960s saw an ideologicial shift in North Korea, as Kim Il-sung sought to consolidate his power. Kim Il-sung was highly critical of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and his de-Stalinization policies, and echoed Chinese critiques of Khrushchev as "revisionist". During the 1956 August Faction Incident, Kim Il-sung successfully resisted efforts by the Soviet Union and China to depose him in favor of Soviet Koreans or the pro-Chinese Yan'an faction. Some scholars believe that the 1956 August incident was an example of North Korea demonstrating political independence. However, most scholars consider the final withdrawal of Chinese troops from North Korea in October 1958 to be the latest date when North Korea became effectively independent. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, North Korea sought to distinguish itself internationally by becoming a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement and promoting the ideology of "Juche". In United States policymaking, North Korea was considered among the Captive Nations. Despite its efforts to break out of the Soviet and Chinese spheres of influence, North Korea remained closely aligned with both countries throughout the Cold War.


title: North Korea

text: Industry was the favored sector in North Korea. Industrial production returned to pre-war levels by 1957. In 1959, relations with Japan had improved somewhat, and North Korea began allowing the repatriation of Japanese citizens in the country. The same year, North Korea revalued the North Korean won, which held greater value than its South Korean counterpart. Until the 1960s, economic growth was higher than in South Korea, and North Korean GDP per capita was equal to that of its southern neighbor as late as 1976. However, by the 1980s, the economy had begun to stagnate; it started its long decline in 1987 and almost completely collapsed after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, when all Soviet aid was suddenly halted.


title: North Korea

text: An internal CIA study acknowledged various achievements of the North Korean government post-war: compassionate care for war orphans and children in general, a radical improvement in the status of women, free housing, free healthcare, and health statistics particularly in life expectancy and infant mortality that were comparable to even the most advanced nations up until the North Korean famine. Life expectancy in the North was 72 before the famine which was only marginally lower than in the South. The country once boasted a comparatively developed healthcare system; pre-famine North Korea had a network of nearly 45,000 family practitioners with some 800 hospitals and 1,000 clinics.


title: North Korea

text: The relative peace between the North and South following the armistice was interrupted by border skirmishes, celebrity abductions, and assassination attempts. The North failed in several assassination attempts on South Korean leaders, such as in 1968, 1974, and the Rangoon bombing in 1983; tunnels were found under the DMZ and tensions flared over the axe murder incident at Panmunjom in 1976. For almost two decades after the war, the two states did not seek to negotiate with one another. In 1971, secret, high-level contacts began to be conducted culminating in the 1972 July 4th North–South Joint Statement that established principles of working toward peaceful reunification. The talks ultimately failed because in 1973, South Korea declared its preference that the two Koreas should seek separate memberships in international organizations.


title: North Korea

text: In 1992, as Kim Il-sung's health began deteriorating, Kim Jong-il slowly began taking over various state tasks. Kim Il-sung died of a heart attack in 1994, with Kim Jong-il declaring a three-year period of national mourning before officially announcing his position as the new leader afterwards.


title: North Korea

text: North Korea promised to halt its development of nuclear weapons under the Agreed Framework, negotiated with U.S. president Bill Clinton and signed in 1994. Building on Nordpolitik, South Korea began to engage with the North as part of its Sunshine Policy. Kim Jong-il instituted a policy called "Songun", or "military first".


title: North Korea

text: Flooding in the mid-1990s exacerbated the economic crisis, severely damaging crops and infrastructure and led to widespread famine which the government proved incapable of curtailing, resulting in the deaths of between 240,000 and 420,000 people. In 1996, the government accepted UN food aid.


title: North Korea

text: The international environment changed once George W. Bush became U.S. President in 2001. His administration rejected South Korea's Sunshine Policy and the Agreed Framework. Bush included North Korea in his axis of evil in his 2002 State of the Union address. The U.S. government accordingly treated North Korea as a rogue state, while North Korea redoubled its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. On 9 October 2006, North Korea announced it had conducted its first nuclear weapons test.


title: North Korea

text: U.S. President Barack Obama adopted a policy of "strategic patience", resisting making deals with North Korea. Tensions with South Korea and the United States increased in 2010 with the sinking of the South Korean warship "Cheonan" and North Korea's shelling of Yeonpyeong Island.


title: North Korea

text: On 17 December 2011, Kim Jong-il died from a heart attack. His youngest son Kim Jong-un was announced as his successor. In the face of international condemnation, North Korea continued to develop its nuclear arsenal, possibly including a hydrogen bomb and a missile capable of reaching the United States.


title: North Korea

text: Throughout 2017, following Donald Trump's ascension to the US presidency, tensions between the United States and North Korea increased, and there was heightened rhetoric between the two, with Trump threatening "fire and fury" if North Korea ever attacked U.S. territory amid North Korean threats to test missiles that would land near Guam. The tensions substantially decreased in 2018, and a détente developed. A series of summits took place between Kim Jong-un of North Korea, President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, and President Trump.


title: North Korea

text: On 10 January 2021, Kim Jong-un was formally elected as the General Secretary in 8th Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea, a title previously held by Kim Jong-il. On 24 March 2022, North Korea conducted a successful ICBM test launch for the first time since the 2017 crisis. In September 2022, North Korea passed a law that declared itself a nuclear state.


title: North Korea

text: North Korea occupies the northern portion of the Korean Peninsula, lying between latitudes 37° and 43°N, and longitudes 124° and 131°E. It covers an area of . To its west are the Yellow Sea and Korea Bay, and to its east lies Japan across the Sea of Japan.


title: North Korea

text: Early European visitors to Korea remarked that the country resembled "a sea in a heavy gale" because of the many successive mountain ranges that crisscross the peninsula. Some 80 percent of North Korea is composed of mountains and uplands, separated by deep and narrow valleys. All of the Korean Peninsula's mountains with elevations of or more are located in North Korea. The highest point in North Korea is Paektu Mountain, a volcanic mountain with an elevation of above sea level. Considered a sacred place by North Koreans, Mount Paektu holds significance in Korean culture and has been incorporated in the elaborate folklore and personality cult around the Kim family. For example, the song, "We Will Go To Mount Paektu" sings in praise of Kim Jong-un and describes a symbolic trek to the mountain. Other prominent ranges are the Hamgyong Range in the extreme northeast and the Rangrim Mountains, which are located in the north-central part of North Korea. Mount Kumgang in the Taebaek Range, which extends into South Korea, is famous for its scenic beauty.


title: North Korea

text: The coastal plains are wide in the west and discontinuous in the east. A great majority of the population lives in the plains and lowlands. According to a United Nations Environmental Programme report in 2003, forest covers over 70 percent of the country, mostly on steep slopes. North Korea had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 8.02/10, ranking it 28th globally out of 172 countries. The longest river is the Amnok (Yalu) River which flows for . The country contains three terrestrial ecoregions: Central Korean deciduous forests, Changbai Mountains mixed forests, and Manchurian mixed forests.


title: North Korea

text: North Korea experiences a combination of continental climate and an oceanic climate, but most of the country experiences a humid continental climate within the Köppen climate classification scheme. Winters bring clear weather interspersed with snow storms as a result of northern and northwestern winds that blow from Siberia. Summer tends to be by far the hottest, most humid, and rainiest time of year because of the southern and southeastern monsoon winds that carry moist air from the Pacific Ocean. Approximately 60 percent of all precipitation occurs from June to September. Spring and autumn are transitional seasons between summer and winter. The daily average high and low temperatures for Pyongyang are in January and in August.


title: North Korea

text: North Korea functions as a highly centralized, one-party totalitarian dictatorship. According to its 2019 constitution, it is a self-described revolutionary and socialist state "guided in its building and activities only by great Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism". In addition to the constitution, North Korea is governed by the Ten Principles for the Establishment of a Monolithic Ideological System (also known as the "Ten Principles of the One-Ideology System") which establishes standards for governance and a guide for the behaviors of North Koreans. The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), a communist party led by a member of the Kim family, has an estimated 6.5 million members and dominates every aspect of North Korean politics. It has two satellite organizations, the Korean Social Democratic Party and the Chondoist Chongu Party which participate in the WPK-led Democratic Front for the Reunification of Korea of which all political officers are required to be members.


title: North Korea

text: Kim Jong-un of the Kim family is the current Supreme Leader or "Suryeong" of North Korea. He heads all major governing structures: he is General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, President of the State Affairs, Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the WPK, and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. His grandfather Kim Il-sung, the founder and leader of North Korea until his death in 1994, is the country's "eternal President", while his father Kim Jong-il who succeeded Kim Il-sung as the leader was announced "Eternal General Secretary" and "Eternal Chairman of the National Defence Commission" after his death in 2011.


title: North Korea

text: According to the Constitution of North Korea, there are officially three main branches of government. The first of these is the State Affairs Commission (SAC), which acts as "the supreme national guidance organ of state sovereignty". Its role is to deliberate and decide the work on defense building of the State, including major policies of the State, and to carry out the directions of the president of the commission, Kim Jong-Un.


title: North Korea

text: Legislative power is held by the unicameral Supreme People's Assembly (SPA). Its 687 members are elected every five years by universal suffrage, though the elections have been described by outside observers as sham elections. Supreme People's Assembly sessions are convened by the SPA Standing Committee, whose Chairman (Choe Ryong-hae since 2019) is the third-ranking official in North Korea. Deputies formally elect the Chairman, the vice-chairmen and members of the Presidium and take part in the constitutionally appointed activities of the legislature: pass laws, establish domestic and foreign policies, appoint members of the cabinet, review and approve the state economic plan, among others. The SPA itself cannot initiate any legislation independently of party or state organs. It is unknown whether it has ever criticized or amended bills placed before it, and the elections are based around a single list of WPK-approved candidates who stand without opposition.


title: North Korea

text: Executive power is vested in the Cabinet of North Korea, which has been headed by Premier Kim Tok-hun since 14 August 2020, who's officially the second-ranking official after Kim Jong-un. The Premier represents the government and functions independently. His authority extends over two vice-premiers, 30 ministers, two cabinet commission chairmen, the cabinet chief secretary, the president of the Central Bank, the director of the Central Bureau of Statistics and the president of the Academy of Sciences. A 31st ministry, the Ministry of People's Armed Forces, is under the jurisdiction of the State Affairs Commission.


title: North Korea

text: North Korea, like its southern counterpart, claims to be the legitimate government of the entire Korean Peninsula and adjacent islands. Despite its official title as the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", some observers have described North Korea's political system as an absolute monarchy or a "hereditary dictatorship". It has also been described as a Stalinist dictatorship.


title: North Korea

text: Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism is the official ideology of North Korea and the WPK, and is the cornerstone of party works and government operations. "Juche", part of the larger Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism along with "Songun" under Kim Jong-un, is viewed by the official North Korean line as an embodiment of Kim Il-sung's wisdom, an expression of his leadership, and an idea which provides "a complete answer to any question that arises in the struggle for national liberation". "Juche" was pronounced in December 1955 in a speech called "On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche in Ideological Work" in order to emphasize a Korea-centered revolution. Its core tenets are economic self-sufficiency, military self-reliance and an independent foreign policy. The roots of "Juche" were made up of a complex mixture of factors, including the cult of personality centered on Kim Il-sung, the conflict with pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese dissenters, and Korea's centuries-long struggle for independence. "Juche" was introduced into the constitution in 1972.


title: North Korea

text: "Juche" was initially promoted as a "creative application" of Marxism–Leninism, but in the mid-1970s, it was described by state propaganda as "the only scientific thought... and most effective revolutionary theoretical structure that leads to the future of communist society". "Juche" eventually replaced Marxism–Leninism entirely by the 1980s, and in 1992 references to the latter were omitted from the constitution. The 2009 constitution dropped references to communism and elevated the "Songun" military first policy while explicitly confirming the position of Kim Jong-il. However, the constitution retains references to socialism. The WPK reasserted its commitment to communism in 2021. "Juche"s concepts of self-reliance have evolved with time and circumstances, but still provide the groundwork for the spartan austerity, sacrifice, and discipline demanded by the party. Scholar Brian Reynolds Myers views North Korea's actual ideology as a Korean ethnic nationalism similar to statism in Shōwa Japan and European fascism.


title: North Korea

text: Since the founding of the nation, North Korea's supreme leadership has stayed within the Kim family, which in North Korea is referred to as the "Mount Paektu Bloodline". It is a three-generation lineage descending from the country's first leader, Kim Il-sung. Kim Il-sung developed North Korea around the "Juche ideology", and stayed in power until his death. Kim developed a cult of personality closely tied to the state philosophy of Juche, which was later passed on to his successors: his son Kim Jong-il in 1994 and grandson Kim Jong-un in 2011. In 2013, Clause 2 of Article 10 of the newly edited "Ten Fundamental Principles of the Workers' Party of Korea" stated that the party and revolution must be carried "eternally" by the "Mount Paektu Bloodline".


title: North Korea

text: According to "New Focus International", the cult of personality, particularly surrounding Kim Il-sung, has been crucial for legitimizing the family's hereditary succession. The control the North Korean government exercises over many aspects of the nation's culture is used to perpetuate the cult of personality surrounding Kim Il-sung, and Kim Jong-il. While visiting North Korea in 1979, journalist Bradley Martin wrote that nearly all music, art, and sculpture that he observed glorified "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung, whose personality cult was then being extended to his son, "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il.


title: North Korea

text: Claims that the family has been deified are contested by North Korea researcher B. R. Myers: "Divine powers have never been attributed to either of the two Kims. In fact, the propaganda apparatus in Pyongyang has generally been careful "not" to make claims that run directly counter to citizens' experience or common sense." He further explains that the state propaganda painted Kim Jong-il as someone whose expertise lay in military matters and that the famine of the 1990s was partially caused by natural disasters out of Kim Jong-il's control.


title: North Korea

text: The song "No Motherland Without You", sung by the North Korean army choir, was created especially for Kim Jong-il and is one of the most popular tunes in the country. Kim Il-sung is still officially revered as the nation's "Eternal President". Several landmarks in North Korea are named for Kim Il-sung, including Kim Il-sung University, Kim Il-sung Stadium, and Kim Il-sung Square. Defectors have been quoted as saying that North Korean schools deify both father and son. Kim Il-sung rejected the notion that he had created a cult around himself, and accused those who suggested this of "factionalism". Following the death of Kim Il-sung, North Koreans were prostrating and weeping to a bronze statue of him in an organized event; similar scenes were broadcast by state television following the death of Kim Jong-il.


title: North Korea

text: Critics maintain that Kim Jong-il's personality cult was inherited from his father. Kim Jong-il was often the center of attention throughout ordinary life. His birthday is one of the most important public holidays in the country. On his 60th birthday (based on his official date of birth), mass celebrations occurred throughout the country. Kim Jong-il's personality cult, although significant, was not as extensive as his father's. One point of view is that Kim Jong-il's cult of personality was solely out of respect for Kim Il-sung or out of fear of punishment for failure to pay homage, while North Korean government sources consider it genuine hero worship.


title: North Korea

text: As a result of its isolation, North Korea is sometimes known as the "hermit kingdom", a term that originally referred to the isolationism in the latter part of the Joseon Dynasty. Initially, North Korea had diplomatic ties only with other communist countries, and even today, most of the foreign embassies accredited to North Korea are located in Beijing rather than in Pyongyang. In the 1960s and 1970s, it pursued an independent foreign policy, established relations with many developing countries, and joined the Non-Aligned Movement. In the late 1980s and the 1990s its foreign policy was thrown into turmoil with the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. Suffering an economic crisis, it closed a number of its embassies. At the same time, North Korea sought to build relations with developed free market countries.


title: North Korea

text: North Korea joined the United Nations in 1991 together with South Korea. North Korea is also a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, G77 and the ASEAN Regional Forum. , North Korea had diplomatic relations with 166 countries and embassies in 47 countries. North Korea does not have diplomatic relations with Argentina, Botswana, Estonia, France, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Taiwan, and the United States. As of September 2017, France and Estonia are the last two European countries that do not have an official relationship with North Korea. In July 2022, Ukraine severed its diplomatic relations with North Korea following North Korea’s recognition of Luhansk People’s Republic and Donetsk People’s Republic.


title: North Korea

text: North Korea enjoys a close relationship with China which is often called North Korea's closest ally. Relations were strained beginning in 2006 because of China's concerns about North Korea's nuclear program. Relations improved after Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese President visited North Korea in April 2019. North Korea continues to have strong ties with several Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Indonesia. Relations with Malaysia were strained in 2017 by the assassination of Kim Jong-nam.


title: North Korea

text: North Korea was previously designated a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. because of its alleged involvement in the 1983 Rangoon bombing and the 1987 bombing of a South Korean airliner. On 11 October 2008, the United States removed North Korea from its list of states that sponsor terrorism after Pyongyang agreed to cooperate on issues related to its nuclear program. North Korea was re-designated a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. under the Trump administration on 20 November 2017. The kidnapping of at least 13 Japanese citizens by North Korean agents in the 1970s and the 1980s has had a detrimental effect on North Korea's relationship with Japan.


title: North Korea

text: US President Donald Trump met with Kim in Singapore on 12 June 2018. An agreement was signed between the two countries endorsing the 2017 Panmunjom Declaration signed by North and South Korea, pledging to work towards denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. They met in Hanoi from 27 to 28 February 2019, but failed to achieve an agreement. On 30 June 2019, Trump met with Kim along with Moon Jae-in at the Korean DMZ.


title: North Korea

text: The Korean Demilitarized Zone with South Korea remains the most heavily fortified border in the world. Inter-Korean relations are at the core of North Korean diplomacy and have seen numerous shifts in the last few decades. North Korea's policy is to seek reunification without what it sees as outside interference, through a federal structure retaining each side's leadership and systems. In 1972, the two Koreas agreed in principle to achieve reunification through peaceful means and without foreign interference. On 10 October 1980, then North Korean leader Kim Il-sung proposed a federation between North and South Korea named the Democratic Federal Republic of Korea in which the respective political systems would initially remain. However, relations remained cool well until the early 1990s, with a brief period in the early 1980s when North Korea offered to provide flood relief to its southern neighbor. Although the offer was initially welcomed, talks over how to deliver the relief goods broke down and none of the promised aid ever crossed the border.


title: North Korea

text: The Sunshine Policy instituted by South Korean president Kim Dae-jung in 1998 was a watershed in inter-Korean relations. It encouraged other countries to engage with the North, which allowed Pyongyang to normalize relations with a number of European Union states and contributed to the establishment of joint North-South economic projects. The culmination of the Sunshine Policy was the 2000 Inter-Korean summit, when Kim Dae-jung visited Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang. Both North and South Korea signed the June 15th North–South Joint Declaration, in which both sides promised to seek peaceful reunification. On 4 October 2007, South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Jong-il signed an eight-point peace agreement.


title: North Korea

text: However, relations worsened when South Korean president Lee Myung-bak adopted a more hard-line approach and suspended aid deliveries pending the de-nuclearization of the North. In 2009, North Korea responded by ending all of its previous agreements with the South. It deployed additional ballistic missiles and placed its military on full combat alert after South Korea, Japan and the United States threatened to intercept a Unha-2 space launch vehicle. The next few years witnessed a string of hostilities, including the alleged North Korean involvement in the sinking of South Korean warship "Cheonan", mutual ending of diplomatic ties, a North Korean artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island, and growing international concern over North Korea's nuclear program.


title: North Korea

text: In May 2017, Moon Jae-in was elected President of South Korea with a promise to return to the Sunshine Policy. In February 2018, a détente developed at the Winter Olympics held in South Korea. In April, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un met at the DMZ, and, in the Panmunjom Declaration, pledged to work for peace and nuclear disarmament. In September, at a joint news conference in Pyongyang, Moon and Kim agreed upon turning the Korean Peninsula into a "land of peace without nuclear weapons and nuclear threats".


title: North Korea

text: North Korea has a civil law system based on the Prussian model and influenced by Japanese traditions and communist legal theory. Judiciary procedures are handled by the Supreme Court (the highest court of appeal), provincial or special city-level courts, people's courts, and special courts. People's courts are at the lowest level of the system and operate in cities, counties and urban districts, while different kinds of special courts handle cases related to military, railroad, or maritime matters.


title: North Korea

text: Judges are theoretically elected by their respective local people's assemblies, but in practice they are appointed by the Workers' Party of Korea. The penal code is based on the principle of "nullum crimen sine lege" (no crime without a law), but remains a tool for political control despite several amendments reducing ideological influence. Courts carry out legal procedures related to not only criminal and civil matters, but also political cases as well. Political prisoners are sent to labor camps, while criminal offenders are incarcerated in a separate system.


title: North Korea

text: The Ministry of Social Security (MSS) maintains most law enforcement activities. It is one of the most powerful state institutions in North Korea and oversees the national police force, investigates criminal cases and manages non-political correctional facilities. It handles other aspects of domestic security like civil registration, traffic control, fire departments and railroad security. The State Security Department was separated from the MPS in 1973 to conduct domestic and foreign intelligence, counterintelligence and manage the political prison system. Political camps can be short-term reeducation zones or "kwalliso" (total control zones) for lifetime detention. Camp 15 in Yodok and Camp 18 in Bukchang have been described in detailed testimonies.


title: North Korea

text: The security apparatus is extensive, exerting strict control over residence, travel, employment, clothing, food and family life. Security forces employ mass surveillance. It is believed they tightly monitor cellular and digital communications.


title: North Korea

text: North Korea is widely described as having the worst human rights record in the world. A 2014 UN inquiry into human rights in North Korea concluded that, "The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world", with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch holding similar views. North Koreans have been referred to as "some of the world's most brutalized people" by Human Rights Watch, because of the severe restrictions placed on their political and economic freedoms. The North Korean population is strictly managed by the state and all aspects of daily life are subordinated to party and state planning. Employment is managed by the party on the basis of political reliability, and travel is tightly controlled by the Ministry of People's Security. North Koreans do not have a choice in the jobs they work and are not free to change jobs at will.


title: North Korea

text: There are severe restrictions on the freedom of association, expression and movement; arbitrary detention, torture and other ill-treatment result in death and execution. Citizens in North Korea are denied freedom of movement including the right to leave the country at will and its government denies access to international human rights observers.


title: North Korea

text: The State Security Department extrajudicially apprehends and imprisons those accused of political crimes without due process. People perceived as hostile to the government, such as Christians or critics of the leadership, are deported to labor camps without trial, often with their whole family and mostly without any chance of being released. Forced labor is part of an established system of political repression.


title: North Korea

text: Based on satellite images and defector testimonies, an estimated 200,000 prisoners are held in six large political prison camps, where they are forced to work in conditions approaching slavery. Supporters of the government who deviate from the government line are subject to reeducation in sections of labor camps set aside for that purpose. Those who are deemed politically rehabilitated may reassume responsible government positions on their release.


title: North Korea

text: North Korean defectors have provided detailed testimonies on the existence of the total control zones where abuses such as torture, starvation, rape, murder, medical experimentation, forced labor, and forced abortions have been reported. On the basis of these abuses, as well as persecution on political, religious, racial, and gender grounds, forcible transfer of populations, enforced disappearance of persons, and forced starvation, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry has accused North Korea of crimes against humanity. The International Coalition to Stop Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea (ICNK) estimates that over 10,000 people die in North Korean prison camps every year.


title: North Korea

text: With 1,100,000 people in modern slavery (via forced labor), North Korea is ranked highest in the world in terms of the percentage of population in modern slavery, with 10.4 percent enslaved according to the Walk Free Foundation's 2018 Global Slavery Index. North Korea is the only country in the world that has not explicitly criminalized any form of modern slavery. A United Nations report listed slavery among the crimes against humanity occurring in North Korea.


title: North Korea

text: Based on interviews with defectors, North Korean women are routinely subjected to sexual violence, unwanted sexual contact, and rape. Men in positions of power, including police, high-ranking officials, market supervisors, and guards can abuse women at will and are not prosecuted for it. It happens so often that it is accepted as a routine part of life. Women assume they can not do anything about it. The only ones with protection are those whose husbands or fathers are themselves in positions of power.


title: North Korea

text: The North Korean government does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so. The most common form of trafficking involves North Korean women and girls forced into marriage or prostitution in China.


title: North Korea

text: The North Korean government rejects the human rights abuse claims, calling them "a smear campaign" and a "human rights racket" aimed at government change. In a 2014 report to the UN, North Korea dismissed accusations of atrocities as "wild rumors". The official state media, KCNA, responded with an article that included homophobic insults against the author of the human rights report, Michael Kirby, calling him "a disgusting old lecher with a 40-odd-year-long career of homosexuality ... This practice can never be found in the DPRK boasting of the sound mentality and good morals ... In fact, it is ridiculous for such gay to sponsor dealing with others' human rights issue." The government, however, admitted some human rights issues related to living conditions and stated that it is working to improve them.


title: North Korea

text: The North Korean armed forces, or the Korean People's Army (KPA), is estimated to comprise 1,280,000 active and 6,300,000 reserve and paramilitary troops, making it one of the largest military institutions in the world. With an active duty army consisting of of its population, the KPA is the fourth largest active military force in the world behind China, India and the United States. About 20 percent of men aged 17–54 serve in the regular armed forces, and approximately one in every 25 citizens is an enlisted soldier.


title: North Korea

text: The KPA is divided into five branches: Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, Special Operations Force, and Rocket Force. Command of the KPA lies in both the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea and the independent State Affairs Commission, which controls the Ministry of People's Armed Forces.


title: North Korea

text: Of all the KPA's branches, the Ground Force is the largest, comprising approximately one million personnel divided into 80 infantry divisions, 30 artillery brigades, 25 special warfare brigades, 20 mechanized brigades, 10 tank brigades and seven tank regiments. It is equipped with 3,700 tanks, 2,100 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, 17,900 artillery pieces, 11,000 anti-aircraft guns and some 10,000 MANPADS and anti-tank guided missiles. The Air Force is estimated to possess around 1,600 aircraft (with between 545 – 810 serving combat roles), while the Navy operates approximately 800 vessels, including the largest submarine fleet in the world. The KPA's Special Operation Force is also the world's largest special forces unit.


title: North Korea

text: North Korea is a nuclear-armed state, though the nature and strength of its arsenal is uncertain. In January 2018, estimates of North Korea's nuclear arsenal ranged between 15 and 60 bombs, probably including hydrogen bombs. Delivery capabilities are provided by the Rocket Force, which has some 1,000 ballistic missiles with a range of up to .


title: North Korea

text: According to a 2004 South Korean assessment, North Korea also possesses a stockpile of chemical weapons estimated to amount to between 2,500–5,000 tons, including nerve, blister, blood, and vomiting agents, as well as the ability to cultivate and produce biological weapons including anthrax, smallpox, and cholera. As a result of its nuclear and missile tests, North Korea has been sanctioned under United Nations Security Council resolutions 1695 of July 2006, 1718 of October 2006, 1874 of June 2009, 2087 of January 2013, and 2397 in December 2017.


title: North Korea

text: The sale of weapons to North Korea by other states is prohibited by UN sanctions, and the KPA's conventional capabilities are limited by a number of factors including obsolete equipment, insufficient fuel supplies and a shortage of digital command and control assets. To compensate for these deficiencies, the KPA has deployed a wide range of asymmetric warfare technologies including anti-personnel blinding lasers, GPS jammers, midget submarines and human torpedoes, stealth paint, and cyberwarfare units. In 2015, North Korea was reported to employ 6,000 sophisticated computer security personnel in a cyberwarfare unit operating out of China. KPA units were blamed for the 2014 Sony Pictures hack and have allegedly attempted to jam South Korean military satellites.


title: North Korea

text: Much of the equipment in use by the KPA is engineered and manufactured by the domestic defense industry. Weapons are manufactured in roughly 1,800 underground defense industry plants scattered throughout the country, most of them located in Chagang Province. The defense industry is capable of producing a full range of individual and crew-operated weapons, artillery, armored vehicles, tanks, missiles, helicopters, submarines, landing and infiltration craft and Yak-18 trainers, and may even have limited jet aircraft manufacturing capacity. According to North Korean state media, military expenditure amounted to 15.8 percent of the state budget in 2010. The U.S. State Department has estimated that North Korea's military spending averaged 23% of its GDP from 2004 to 2014, the highest level in the world. North Korea successfully tested a new type of submarine-launched ballistic missile on 19 October 2021.


title: North Korea

text: With the exception of a small Chinese community and a few ethnic Japanese, North Korea's people are ethnically homogeneous. Demographic experts in the 20th century estimated that the population would grow to 25.5 million by 2000 and 28 million by 2010, but this increase never occurred due to the North Korean famine. It began in 1995, lasted for three years and resulted in the deaths of between 240,000 and 420,000 North Koreans.


title: North Korea

text: International donors led by the United States initiated shipments of food through the World Food Program in 1997 to combat the famine. Despite a drastic reduction of aid under the George W. Bush administration, the situation gradually improved: the number of malnourished children declined from 60% in 1998 to 37% in 2006 and 28% in 2013. Domestic food production almost recovered to the recommended annual level of 5.37 million tons of cereal equivalent in 2013, but the World Food Program reported a continuing lack of dietary diversity and access to fats and proteins. By the mid-2010s national levels of severe wasting, an indication of famine-like conditions, were lower than in other low-income countries and about on par with developing nations in the Pacific and East Asia. Children’s health and nutrition is significantly better on a number of indicators than in many other Asian countries.


title: North Korea

text: The famine had a significant impact on the population growth rate, which declined to 0.9% annually in 2002. It was 0.5% in 2014. Late marriages after military service, limited housing space and long hours of work or political studies further exhaust the population and reduce growth. The national birth rate is 14.5 births per year per 1,000 population. Two-thirds of households consist of extended families mostly living in two-room units. Marriage is virtually universal and divorce is extremely rare.


title: North Korea

text: North Korea has a life expectancy of 72.3 years in 2019, according to HDR 2020. While North Korea is classified as a low-income country, the structure of North Korea's causes of death (2013) is unlike that of other low-income countries. Instead, it is closer to worldwide averages, with non-communicable diseases—such as cardiovascular disease and cancers—accounting for 84 percent of the total deaths in 2016.