Home » Archives » KoreanStudies » Population in North Korea 1945
| Population in North Korea 1945 [message #8434] |
Wed, 22 March 2006 11:44  |
Ruediger Frank
Messages: 102
Registered: October 2000
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Senior Member |
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Dear list members,
I am looking for data on the population of North Korea around liberation, i.e. in 1945,
before the migration towards the South started. My estimate would be around 7-8 millions.
Any hint is highly appreciated.
Best,
Ruediger Frank
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| Re: Population in North Korea 1945 [message #8435 is a reply to message #8434] |
Wed, 22 March 2006 15:23  |
Sonya S Lee
Messages: 8
Registered: July 1998
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Junior Member |
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Dear Ruediger Frank:
Sarah Kim, researcher of the Federal Research Division at the Library of Congress, found this figure a while ago.
Kim, Doo Sub. "The transition of population in Korean Penninsula, 1910-1990: Comparison of South and North," Korea Institute for Peace Affairs, 5, No.4, December 1993, 209.
The population of North Korea in 1945 was estimated at 9,135,000.
Hope this is of use.
Sonya Lee
Reference Specialist
Korean Section, Asian Division
Library of Congress
Tel: 202 - 707-2991
Email: slee@loc.gov
>>> rfrank@koreanstudies.de 03/22/06 11:44 AM >>>
Dear list members,
I am looking for data on the population of North Korea around liberation, i.e. in 1945,
before the migration towards the South started. My estimate would be around 7-8 millions.
Any hint is highly appreciated.
Best,
Ruediger Frank
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| Re: Population in North Korea 1945 [message #8439 is a reply to message #8436] |
Thu, 23 March 2006 12:15 |
Kirk W. Larsen
Messages: 25
Registered: November 2000
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Junior Member |
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A few other places to look for population data:
Trewartha, Glenn T., and Wilbur Zelinsky. "Population Distribution and Change in Korea 1925-1949." Geographical Review 45, no. 1 (1955): 1-26.
Taeuber, Irene B. "The Population Potential of Postwar Korea." Far Eastern Quarterly 5, no. 3 (1946): 289-307.
United States. Dept. of State. Division of Functional Intelligence. Population and Economic Data on the Zones of Occupation in Korea, [R & a Report]. Washington: Dept. of State, Division of International and Functional Intelligence, 1946.
Kirk W. Larsen
Korea Foundation Assistant Professor of
History and International Affairs
Co-Director, Undergraduate Program in International Affairs
1957 E Street 503H
The George Washington University
Washington DC, 20052
(202) 994-5253
----- Original Message -----
From: Balazs Szalontai
Date: Thursday, March 23, 2006 1:22 am
Subject: Re: [KS] Population in North Korea 1945
To: Korean Studies Discussion List
> Dear Ruediger,
>
> the most detailed work on the subject is probably the book of
> Nicholas Eberstadt and Judith Banister, "The Population of North
> Korea" (1992). As far as I remember, the last Japanese census was
> held in 1944 or so.
>
> Best,
> Balazs
>
>
>
> I am looking for data on the population of North Korea around
> liberation, i.e. in 1945,
> before the migration towards the South started. My estimate would
> be around 7-8 millions.
> Any hint is highly appreciated.
>
> Best,
>
> Ruediger Frank
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Win a BlackBerry device from O2 with Yahoo!. Enter now.
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| Re: Population in North Korea 1945 [message #8445 is a reply to message #8434] |
Thu, 23 March 2006 19:27 |
Afostercarter
Messages: 185
Registered: November 2000
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Senior Member |
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Dear Ruediger and all,
Surely we can do better than estimates and hints?
Before the heroic liberator Kim Il-sung made figures a state secret,
the nefarious Japanese imperialists measured everything, and
published quite a lot of it. So this question will have an answer.
I am away from my main library, but the Economist Intelligence Unit's
North Korea Country Profile says as follows:
"After 1945 North Korea's population fell, owing to southward flight
and the Korean war, from 9.3m in 1946 to 8.5m in 1953. It then grew
quickly as death rates dropped while birth rates remained high.
By 1970 most people lived in cities. The labour force shifted accordingly,
although in 1993 one-third of workers (3.6m out of 11m) were still peasants."
Full disclosure: I wrote this, some years ago. The numbers are doubtless
nicked
- no pun intended - from the indispensable Eberstadt and Banister, whom
Balazs Szalontai rightly commends. I don't have mine to hand, but am
copying this to Dr E since I'm not sure if he subscribes to this list or not.
Yonhap's monster North Korea Handbook (2003) on p44, table 5 has the
same official figure (less rounded) of 9,257,000 for 1946. Given that by 1949
it had risen to 9,622,000, this annual rate of growth of just under 122,000
suggests
that the 1945 total of 9,135,000 conveyed by Sonia Lee is about right.
In fact uncannily so. Dare one wonder if Kim Doo Sub simply took the 1946
and 1949 figures reported by the DPRK to UNFPA in 1987 (better late than
never)
and subtracted 122,000 to get a number for 1945?
If so, this begs questions about the rate of leakage - in either direction -
across a 38th Parallel then slightly more permeable than the later DMZ.
Are there estimates for this at all? Which reminds me:
Again from memory because not to hand, Gregory Henderson in Politics of the
Vortex
has some graphic passages about the infant South Korea - not sure whether
USAMGIK
or ROK at this point; probably the former - which was a pretty chaotic place
already,
being all but overwhelmed by an influx of incomers. But the bulk of these, if
I recall,
were returnees from Japan - more than a million? - rather than refugees from
the North.
And while thinking, fondly, of Old Korea Hands: Besides the further sources
mentioned
by Kirk Larson, I'm pretty sure that either or both of the redoubtable McCune
brothers will have some of these numbers, in their books written soon after
this time.
Finally, imho North Korea's future demography is at least as interesting
as historically. (Old Soviet - or possibly Polish - joke:
"Only the future is certain; the past is always changing.")
I have a letter on this in the next issue of Foreign Policy.
cheers
Aidan FC
AIDAN FOSTER-CARTER
Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea, Leeds University
Home address: 17 Birklands Road, Shipley, West Yorkshire, BD18 3BY, UK
tel: +44(0) 1274 588586 (alt) +44(0) 1264 737634 mobile:
+44(0) 7970 741307
fax: +44(0) 1274 773663 ISDN: +44(0) 1274 589280
Email: afostercarter@aol.com (alt) afostercarter@yahoo.com website:
www.aidanfc.net
[Please use @aol; but if any problems, please try @yahoo too - and let me
know, so I can chide AOL]
________________
Subj: Re: [KS] Population in North Korea 1945
Date: 23/03/2006 06:32:50 GMT Standard Time
From: aoverl@yahoo.co.uk
Reply-to: Koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws
To: Koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws
Sent from the Internet (Details)
Dear Ruediger,
the most detailed work on the subject is probably the book of Nicholas
Eberstadt and Judith Banister, "The Population of North Korea" (1992). As far as I
remember, the last Japanese census was held in 1944 or so.
Best,
Balazs
Subj: Re: [KS] Population in North Korea 1945
Date: 23/03/2006 06:31:21 GMT Standard Time
From: slee@loc.gov
Reply-to: Koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws
To: Koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws
Sent from the Internet (Details)
Dear Ruediger Frank:
Sarah Kim, researcher of the Federal Research Division at the Library of
Congress, found this figure a while ago.
Kim, Doo Sub. "The transition of population in Korean Penninsula, 1910-1990:
Comparison of South and North," Korea Institute for Peace Affairs, 5, No.4,
December 1993, 209.
The population of North Korea in 1945 was estimated at 9,135,000.
Hope this is of use.
Sonya Lee
Reference Specialist
Korean Section, Asian Division
Library of Congress
Tel: 202 - 707-2991
Email: slee@loc.gov
In a message dated 23/03/2006 23:06:02 GMT Standard Time, kwlarsen@gwu.edu
writes:
> Subj:Re: [KS] Population in North Korea 1945
> Date:23/03/2006 23:06:02 GMT Standard Time
> From:kwlarsen@gwu.edu
> Reply-to:Koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws
> To:Koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws
> Sent from the Internet
>
>
>
> A few other places to look for population data:
>
> Trewartha, Glenn T., and Wilbur Zelinsky. "Population Distribution and
> Change in Korea 1925-1949." Geographical Review 45, no. 1 (1955): 1-26.
>
>
>
> Taeuber, Irene B. "The Population Potential of Postwar Korea." Far Eastern
> Quarterly 5, no. 3 (1946): 289-307.
>
>
>
> United States. Dept. of State. Division of Functional Intelligence.
> Population and Economic Data on the Zones of Occupation in Korea, [R & a Report].
> Washington: Dept. of State, Division of International and Functional
> Intelligence, 1946.
>
>
>
> Kirk W. Larsen
> Korea Foundation Assistant Professor of
> History and International Affairs
> Co-Director, Undergraduate Program in International Affairs
> 1957 E Street 503H
> The George Washington University
> Washington DC, 20052
> (202) 994-5253
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Balazs Szalontai
> Date: Thursday, March 23, 2006 1:22 am
> Subject: Re: [KS] Population in North Korea 1945
> To: Korean Studies Discussion List
>
> > Dear Ruediger,
> >
> > the most detailed work on the subject is probably the book of
> > Nicholas Eberstadt and Judith Banister, "The Population of North
> > Korea" (1992). As far as I remember, the last Japanese census was
> > held in 1944 or so.
> >
> > Best,
> > Balazs
> >
> >
> >
> > I am looking for data on the population of North Korea around
> > liberation, i.e. in 1945,
> > before the migration towards the South started. My estimate would
> > be around 7-8 millions.
> > Any hint is highly appreciated.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Ruediger Frank
> >
> >
>
>
>
_________________
Subj: [KS] Population in North Korea 1945
Date: 22/03/2006 19:49:20 GMT Standard Time
From: rfrank@koreanstudies.de
Reply-to: Koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws
To: koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws
Sent from the Internet (Details)
Dear list members,
I am looking for data on the population of North Korea around liberation,
i.e. in 1945,
before the migration towards the South started. My estimate would be around
7-8 millions.
Any hint is highly appreciated.
Best,
Ruediger Frank
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