Tell some facts about North Korea ?

North Korea's climate varies dramatically between winter and summer. It is vulnerable to Siberian weather systems in the winter, and the East Asian monsoon in the summer.

It is thought that North Korea suffers from severe air pollution in places where heavy industry is predominant. The government passed a law to improve the environment in 1986, after more than three decades of what is believed to have been massive fossil fuel consumption.

Food production in North Korea is confined to coastal provinces in the west of the country. The mountainous terrain elsewhere make agriculture impossible.

The role of women in North Korean society is fundamentally different to that fostered by traditional Korean attitudes. Women are a fully integrated part of the country's workforce and military.

North Korea uses a different form of the Korean language to its southern neighbour. Although based on different dialects within the country, the North considers its language Munhwao, meaning cultured.

Pyongyang, the country's capital city, is known in Korean as the Capital of Willows

North Korea produces ten times as much coal and iron ore as its southern neighbour.

All visitors to North Korea must be escorted on guided tours. There are different rules allowing access to the country for Western, Chinese and South Korean tourists.

After the enforced separation of the country, many people fled the North for the South. This has led to the spread of North Korean cooking, replacing or complementing the more spicy traditions of the southern part of the Peninsula.

Between 1910 and 1945, the entire Korean Peninsula was occupied by Japan. During this time, traditional Korean customs and philosophies were banned, causing lasting antipathy in parts of society. This has been fostered by the Kim Dynasty in North Korea.

North Korea has the world's largest number of military personnel, both active and in reserve. It has the fourth largest active army on the planet.

Although tiny in Western terms, the North Korean film industry is very important to the cultural life of the country. It is described by the government as “The most powerful medium for educating the masses.” North Korean movies are very patriotic, with emphasis on past struggles, such as that against Japanese occupation.

Although widely considered as isolationist, North Korea is in fact a continuation of a Peninsula wide national tradition of self reliance in the face of foreign intervention, combined with Confucian tradition and bureaucracy.

The Olympic sport of Taekwondo is a Korean martial art. The Korean International Taekwondo Tourism Company is one of the few North Korean tourism bureaus.

The traditional alcoholic spirit drink of Korea is Soju. Distilled from barley, rice or wheat, this originated in the south of the Peninsula, but is popular in the North.

The rivers which form North Korea's northern border, the Yalu and Tumen, are age old natural boundaries which have been recognized as defining Korea's identity since around 4,000 BC.

North Korea is recognized in scripts written in Hangul and Hanja; Hangul is the official writing system of both Koreas.

All Korean mountains over 2,000 metres high are located in North Korea.

Paektu-san, or Paektu Mountain, is an active volcano and the highest mountain in North Korea. It is considered by all Koreans to be their spiritual birthplace; the Kim Dynasty takes its nickname from the Mountain.

North Korea is home to many native Korean species of animals and plants. These include the Korean water deer and Korean Spruce. The DMZ is also home to the endangered Amur leopard

Inchon was the site of an assault led by General Douglas MacArthur on behalf of the United Nations in 1950. Its failure led to his dismissal from office by President Truman.

North Korea is one of the nine sovereign states in the world to possess nuclear weapons. Its possession of these is not part of the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which governs the testing and use of these weapons by other countries. India and Pakistan are also not part of the NPT. Israel is an undeclared nuclear power.

Pyongyang hosts the world's largest stadium. The Rungnado 1st of May Stadium, or May Day Stadium, caters for many sporting and cultural events, and holds 114,000 people. It was built for the 13th World Festival of Youth and Students on May 1, 1989. May Day is celebrated throughout the world as a celebration of organized labour, hence its adoption by the Kim Dynasty government.

The state ideology of North Korea is “Juche,” which translates as self reliance

North Korea has nine provinces and three cities. Five of the provinces are mainly mountainous, and the three cities are Pyongyang, Namp'o and Rason.