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- In recent years, photographers have captured everyday life in North Korea.
- The images give a rare glimpse into the completely isolated nation.
- Many are bleak, while others seem like they could have been taken anywhere.
It’s still rare for the outside world to get a glimpse of daily life in North Korea. The country only recently allowed Western tourists back in following the COVID-19 pandemic, and sometimes photographers have difficulty getting to certain locations.
Last year, an AFP photographer captured rare images showing daily life in North Korea.
Pedro Pardo took photos of a remote part of North Korea’s border from China’s Jilin province. The images offer a bleak yet fascinating look at life in a country shrouded in secrecy.
Recent images that other photographers took in Pyongyang, the country’s capital, almost seem like they could be from any city. They show people strolling the streets or celebrating the New Year, yet there are often large signs displaying propaganda as a backdrop.
North Korea was founded in 1948 under Kim Il Sung as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, inspired by strict Marxist-Leninist principles.
Its population of roughly 26 million people lives largely in isolation from the rest of the world in the austere communist state, barred from going abroad without permission from the government and subjected to state-run media that blare propaganda praising the nation and its supreme leader, Kim Jong Un.
North Korea’s self-imposed isolation is largely because of its guiding principle of “Juche,” or self-reliance, the idea that it should be able to function completely independently and remain separate from the rest of the world.
In practice, this has achieved little other than stifling the country’s economy and trade, and many of its citizens face high poverty levels and severe food shortages. The CIA says the country “remains one of the World’s most isolated and one of Asia’s poorest.”
The Guardian reported last year that since the 1950s, an estimated 31,000 North Koreans had sought to escape and defected to South Korea. The number surged in 2023 amid what the unification ministry in Seoul called “worsening conditions in North Korea.”
Photos present a unique look into those conditions and life in one of the world’s last communist states.
A sign reads “Great leader Comrade Kim Jong Il will always be with us” in Pyongyang, the country’s capital.
KIM WON JIN/AFP via Getty Images
A loudspeaker for broadcasts is seen in Kaepoong, which South Korea considers a propaganda village.
Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters
Buildings appear in need of repair in Kaesong.
ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP via Getty Images
An art exhibit for Kim Jong Il’s birthday is full of paintings of the family.
Kim Won Jin/AFP via Getty Images
People walk along a street in Pyongyang.
Kim Won Jin/AFP via Getty Images
North Korean soldiers work on the border near China.
Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images
The North Korean city of Hyesan is seen from China.
Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images
A train carriage pulls a wagon in the North Korean city of Namyang.
Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images
A sign on a hillside in the town of Chunggang reads, “My country is the best.”
Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images
A watchtower is manned on the border in Hyesan.
Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images
Portraits of the former North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are seen in Chunggang.
Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images
Large portraits of the former leaders are displayed on a government building in Namyang.
Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images
North Korean people work in a field.
Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images
A sign in Chunggang reads, “Let’s unify the party and all society with the revolutionary ideas of comrade Kim Jong Un!”
Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images
Trucks cross a border bridge connecting Changbai, China, and Hyesan, North Korea.
Pedro Pardo / AFP via Getty Images
