Author unknown
October 2, 2007
Overview
After the Korean War, Kim Il-sung introduced the personal philosophy of Juche, or self-reliance, which became a guiding light for North Korea's development. Kim Il-sung's son, Kim Jong-il, is now head of state, but the post of president has been assigned "eternally" to his late father.
Decades of this rigid state-controlled system have led to stagnation and a leadership dependent on the cult of personality.
Aid agencies have estimated that up to two million people have died since the mid-1990s because of acute food shortages caused by natural disasters and economic mismanagement. The country relies on foreign aid to feed millions of its people. 
The totalitarian state also stands accused of systematic human rights abuses. Reports of torture, public executions, slave labour, and forced abortions and infanticides in prison camps have emerged. A US-based rights group has estimated that there are up to 200,000 political prisoners in North Korea.
Pyongyang has accused successive South Korean governments of being US "puppets", but South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's visit in 2000 signalled a thaw in relations. Seoul's "sunshine policy" towards the north aimed to encourage change through dialogue and aid.
But this tentative reaching-out to the world was dealt a blow in 2002 by Pyongyang's decision to reactivate a nuclear reactor and to expel international inspectors. The country is said to have a handful of nuclear weapons and a uranium enrichment programme. It has declared itself a nuclear power and has an active missile programme.
In October 2006 North Korea said it had successfully tested a nuclear weapon, spreading alarm around the region.
Diplomatic efforts have aimed to rein in North Korea's nuclear ambitions. After years of on-and-off talks, a deal was thrashed out in February 2007 under which Pyongyang agreed to shut down its main nuclear reactor in return for fuel and aid.
North Korea admitted International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, who verified the shutdown of the Yongbyon reactor in July. This began what IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei called a "complicated process" that would eventually disable the reactor and other nuclear facilities in the country.
The February deal was delayed in June over the slow unfreezing of North Korean funds held in a Macau bank under US-instigated sanctions. Progress followed swiftly on their release, when South Korea resumed food aid and supplied fuel oil to the North.
North Korea maintains one of the world's largest standing armies and militarism pervades everyday life. But standards of training, discipline and equipment in the force are said to be low.
In 2002 US President George W Bush named the country as part of an "axis of evil".
Leaders
Eternal president: Kim Il-sung (deceased)
Chairman, National Defence Commission: Kim Jong-il
Beyond the elaborate personality cult through which he rules, little is known about Kim Jong-il's character.
He is rarely photographed and is almost never heard in radio and TV broadcasts.
After the death of Kim Il-sung in 1994, Kim Jong-il did not immediately assume his father's titles; there were reports that Kim Il-sung's first choice as successor was the younger brother, Kim Yong-ju. Kim Jong-il eventually became head of the Korean Workers' Party in 1997.
He is credited with writing six operas in two years, and with personally designing the huge Juche tower in Pyongyang.
In recent years he has met several world leaders, including the South Korean president and the Japanese prime minister. He has attended summits in Moscow and Beijing.
Mr Kim is sometimes caricatured as a reclusive playboy with bouffant hair, platform shoes and a taste for cognac.
There has been speculation about his health. Mr Kim is said to have gastric problems arising from his love of spicy food. Other reports suggest that he has liver problems. North Korea watchers believe that one of Mr Kim's three sons will become the dictator's anointed heir.
Kim Jong-il was born in Siberia in 1941 during his father's period of exile in the former Soviet Union.
But official North Korean accounts say he was born in a log cabin at his father's guerrilla base on the country's highest mountain - an event marked by a double rainbow and a new star in the sky.
Media
Radio and TV sets in North Korea are pre-tuned to government stations that pump out a steady stream of propaganda. The state has been dubbed the world's worst violator of press freedom by the media rights body Reporters Without Frontiers.
Press outlets and broadcasters - all of them under direct state control - serve up a menu of flattering reports about Kim Jong-il and his daily agenda. North Korea's economic hardships or famines are not reported.
However, after the historic Korean summit in Pyongyang in 2000, media outlets toned down their fierce denunciations of the Seoul government.
Ordinary North Koreans caught listening to foreign broadcasts risk harsh punishments, such as forced labour.
North Korea has a minimal presence on the internet. The web pages of North Korea's official news agency, KCNA, are hosted by the agency's bureau in Japan.
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