Islam by country · Asia
Islam in Korea, North: history and Muslim population data
Explore CoMPS research on the historical journey of Islam in Korea, North, alongside population data and an interactive timeline.
Open Korea, North in the interactive map
History of Islam in Korea, North
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has a total area of 120,538 sqkm and its map is presented in Figure 2.6.4. The Korean Peninsula wasoccupied by the Japanese in 1905. They were kicked out in 1945 aftertheir WWII defeat. The Peninsula was divided with the Russians andChinese supporting the North and Americans supporting the South. Thetwo countries were declared in 1948. An unsuccessful war to unify thepeninsula erupted between 1950 and 1953. The Muslim populationincreased from none in 1970 and before, to 500 in 1982, to 2,000 or 0.01%in 2008. Assuming that the percentage of Muslims will remain constant; then the Muslim population is expected to remain less than 3,000 for therest of this century.
Historical Muslim population dataset for Korea, North
The figures below are from the CoMPS historical dataset. Population values are expressed in thousands; 2100 is a modelled projection, not a present-day count.
| Year | Total population (thousands) | Muslim population (thousands) | Muslim share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1900 | 4,777 | 0.000 | 0.00% |
| 2000 | 23,291 | 2.33 | 0.01% |
| 2100 | 20,528 | 2.05 | 0.01% |
For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.