What was North Korea's 1990s famine, and how many people died?
Estimates of how many people died in North Korea's 1990s famine run from 240,000 to 3.5 million.
North Korea's of the 1990s was a period of mass starvation and general economic crisis from 1994 to 1999, which the government called the Arduous March. How many people died is still disputed: estimates run from 240,000 to 3.5 million out of a population of about 22 million, with deaths peaking in 1997.
The causes piled up. Economic mismanagement and the loss of Soviet support made food production and imports fall rapidly. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, aid and trade concessions such as cheap oil ended, and energy imports fell by 75%. Less than 20% of North Korea's mountainous land is , so farmland is scarce. Then floods in July and August 1995, described by independent observers as of biblical proportions, hit as much as 30 percent of the country.
Step 1: Soviet aid ends
Cheap oil and trade concessions stop in 1991
Step 2: Little farmland
Under 20% of the land is
Step 3: Floods in 1995
Up to 30 percent of the country affected
Step 4: Rations fail
By 1997 the system fed only 6% of people
The numbers vary widely between studies. A 2011 US Census Bureau study put from 1993 to 2000 at between 500,000 and 600,000. Independent researchers estimated in 2001 and 2007 that between 600,000 and 1 million people died. According to researcher Andrei Lankov, both the very high and very low ends of the estimates are considered inaccurate.
The also changed daily life. Foreign observers claimed food was distributed according to political standing and loyalty to the state. The was feeding only 6% of the population by 1997, and people turned to illegal private markets. across the border boomed and up to 250,000 North Koreans moved to China. The famine also left homeless, migrant children known as .
Quiz me
0/3
Recap
Lost Soviet support, a mountainous land with little farmland and the 1995 floods combined, and the death toll is uncertain.
💡 A trick to remember it · No Soviet bread, no flat land, and a flood on top: three blows, and a count nobody can settle.
Surprising fact · Estimates of the dead range from 240,000 to 3.5 million, and researchers say the extremes are inaccurate.
Connects to
- 🛒 What are jangmadang, and how do North Koreans make a living?
- ☀️ What is Juche, and who was Kim Il Sung, North Korea's founder?
- 🇰🇵 What is North Korea, and how did Korea end up split in two?
- 🌾 How many died under Stalin's famine and terror, and was the Holodomor a genocide?
- 🏛️ Why did the Soviet Union collapse, and could anyone have stopped it?
Sources (1)
No source, no claim. Every fact in this lesson (15 claims) cites at least one of these.