🇰🇵 Democratic People's Republic of Korea (조선)
Visiting: Dangerous
Travel to North Korea carries serious risks. Its best measures are only mid-range: LGBT rights are limited, ranking 96th, and violent crime is moderate, at 101st. Its weakest measure is freedom, which is close to absent, placed 179th. Women's safety is poor, there is significant exposure to conflict and the roads are hazardous, with all three ranking between 151st and 160th.
Homicide
Intentional homicides per 100,000 people — lower is better.
North Korea: 4.1
Ranked 80th in the world for the highest homicide rate.
Why this rank?
Four killings per 100,000 people a year on the WHO's estimate is below the world average but above the three where the low tier ends.
Is it safe to visit?
The figure is a guess — a WHO estimate with nothing behind it, since no data leaves the country. Nothing can be read from it either way.
Road Fatalities
Road-traffic deaths per 100,000 people per year — lower is better.
North Korea: 24.2
Ranked 21st in the world for the deadliest roads.
Why this rank?
Twenty-four deaths per 100,000 people a year on the WHO's estimate is well above the world average of fifteen but short of double it.
Is it safe to visit?
Not safe on the figure, though it's an old estimate with no count behind it.
Why we updated the score?
The WHO publishes no current figure for North Korea, so this is our own, taken from the WHO's last estimate, for 2019. Nothing newer exists.
Conflict
Conflict deaths inside the country in the last twelve months, as recorded by the Uppsala conflict database, civilians killed on purpose, and any UN sanctions or court order over a war. The worst of those sets the colour. Lower is better.
North Korea: 4.00
Ranked 23rd most conflict-affected country in the world.
Why this rank?
No conflict death is recorded in North Korea in twenty-five years, but it is under UN Security Council sanctions over its nuclear and missile programmes, and that alone puts it in the dark red.
Is it safe to visit?
Take it seriously for what it is. Nothing burns on the peninsula, and a visitor's risk is the state itself, not war.
Freedom
Six freedoms rated 0–4 by Freedom House — protest, speech, press, religion, movement and due process. The weakest rating sets the colour, and the total places the country inside it — higher is better.
North Korea: 0.00
Ranked 2nd least free country in the world.
Why this rank?
In North Korea due process and movement are rated 0, meaning absent, so the courts offer no protection and movement is controlled. Total 0 of 24.
Is it safe to visit?
A totalitarian one-party state. Surveillance is pervasive, arbitrary arrest is common, all media is state-run, assembly is not recognised, and political prison camps practise torture and forced labour. Nothing protects a visitor.
LGBT Rights
LGBT equality in law and daily life — higher is better.
North Korea: 3.4
Ranked 85th least equal in the world for LGBT people.
Why this rank?
No law addresses homosexuality at all, and the state simply denies it exists. The law index sits at 34 and there is no opinion survey.
Is it safe to visit?
Reasonable only in the sense that no law applies. In a total-control society the question of an open life does not arise.
Women's Safety
Women's safety — feeling safe out at night, political violence against women, a fair hearing in court, and how normal violence at home is, with the night figure setting a floor on the colour — higher is better.
North Korea: 6.05
Ranked 30th least safe country in the world for women.
Why this rank?
The index surveys nothing in North Korea, so the street and home figures are its regional estimates. The one measured input, the courts, rates near the bottom for women.
Is it safe to visit?
A woman travelling alone should take care in North Korea.