Country Resource - North Korea
- Population..............................................................................26,072,217 (2023 est.)
- Population growth rate ....................................................................0.44% (2023 est.)
- Birth rate.....................................................14.06 births/1,000 population (2023 est.)
- Death rate...................................................9.66 deaths/1,000 population (2023 est.)
- Net migration rate.................................-0.04 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2023 est.)
- Ethnic groups..................................racially homogeneous; there is a small Chinese community and a few ethnic Japanese
CIA World Factbook
Economic, social, and political conditions have pushed North Koreans to illegally leave their country and migrate to South Korea, China, Russia, and elsewhere. MPI's Hiroyuki Tanaka examines humanitarian and economic migration flows from North Korea, and the situation of North Koreans living abroad.
Recent Activity
Immigrants from the Korean peninsula are one of the ten largest foreign-born groups in the United States, but their numbers have actually shrunk in recent years. Immigrants from Korea tend to be older, better educated, and earn higher incomes than the overall immigrant and native-born populations.
Approximately 1 million Korean immigrants—the vast majority from South Korea—resided in the United States in 2017. Korean immigrants tend to be highly educated and of high socioeconomic standing. Get the latest data on this population, including flows over time, geographic distribution, employment, and more in this Spotlight.
Two years after the Trump administration’s much-litigated travel ban was created, the policy has demonstrated a significant impact on the admission of foreigners from the banned countries, while also reshaping U.S. security vetting procedures and the refugee resettlement process in enduring ways, as this article explores on the second-year anniversary.
Approximately 1 million Korean immigrants (overwhelmingly from South Korea) lived in the United States in 2015, representing 2.4 percent of the U.S. immigrant population. While earlier waves consisted largely of unskilled laborers and their families, contemporary Korean immigration boasts high socioeconomic standing and Koreans are generally considered among the most successful immigrant groups.
Economic, social, and political conditions have pushed North Koreans to illegally leave their country and migrate to South Korea, China, Russia, and elsewhere. MPI's Hiroyuki Tanaka examines humanitarian and economic migration flows from North Korea, and the situation of North Koreans living abroad.
Tsuneo Akaha of the Monterey Institute of International Studies looks at emerging migration patterns in North Korea, China, Russia, and Japan.
