Jangmadang
markets in North Korea
Jangmadang (lit. 'market grounds'; Korean: 장마당; Hanja: 場마당; IPA: [t͡ɕa̠ŋma̠da̠ŋ]) are North Korean local markets, farmers' markets, black markets and bazaars. Since the North Korean famine in the 1990s, they have formed a large informal economy, and the government has become more lenient towards them. However, merchants still face heavy regulations. A majority of North Koreans have become dependent on jangmadang for their survival.
The North Korean government has tried to regulate the growth of the market economy in North Korea using a variety of methods. Some of them, such as regulating the age of traders, has resulted in societal changes such as making women more responsible for earning money for their families.
There have been speculations on the possible role of black markets in reforming the North Korean government and its economy, as has happened in China.
In 2019, the authorities moved to curb individual economic activity, followed by greater crackdowns in 2021, creating a decline in markets.
Background
North Korea established a socialist welfare system in 1948, with the Constitution of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. This system nationalized the means of production and the population received goods, food, and other necessities through a public distribution system.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Jangmadang” is markets in North Korea. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Jangmadang, markets and North, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q23808162. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2019, 2021 and 1948.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jangmadang” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.