North Korea

North Korea, or the Democratic Republic of North Korea (DPRK) is the northern part of the Korean peninsula next to northern China.

At the end of World War II in 1946, The US and Russia agreed to split the administration of Korea, with Russia in control of the northern division.

 File:North Korea farmers.jpg|1947 1w farmers reprint. The original is roughly printed on lesser quality paper in dark blue. File:North korea medal reprint.jpg|1950 medal reprint File:N Korea Sputnik.jpg|1957 20ch Sputnk File:North Korea meeting.jpg|1969 10ch Kim Il sung's early years
 * Both North and South Korea used the same name until mid-1948 when South Korea changed its name. North Korean stamps in this period have currency expressed in "z" or Won.png ("won"). South Korean stamps after the first US military issue can be identified by currency expressed in "Cn" or "Won/Wn".
 * Most stamps would be issued without gum to about 1961, with some issues with only one value having gum.
 * Reprints were made of many stamps up to mid-1956. See the Scott catalog, etc. for identification. Nearly all originals and reprints are imperf during this period. In general, reprints are printed better than originals and may have differences from the originals.
 * The one and only airmail stamp was issued in 1958.
 * Sometime in the 1960s, sets began to be issued imperf as well as perfed. Imperf sets were often issued without gum. CTO stamps were also released.
 * About Spring 1965, year dates were added to stamps.



 File:N korea 5w ships.jpg|from the 1978 ships set File:North Korea antarctic.jpg|from the 1991 Antarctic exploration series File:N Korea 2011 dino.A.webp|42w value from the 2011 dinosaurs issue File:N Korea 2017 flowers.jpg|2017 30w flowers 
 * Domestic printing variants have been reported for a number of issues beginning in the early 1970s.
 * In December 1976, stamps began to be additionally inscribed DPRK (Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea).
 * That inscription gradually became DPR KOREA beginning in 1980. It is still in use to this day.

See
[[Category:N]]
 * [University of Chicago Library collection a sampling of issues currently only going back to the 1970s