长白山
Kim's official biography states he was born in a secret military camp on Paektu Mountain (; "Baekdusan Miryeong Gohyang jip") in Japanese-occupied Korea on 16 February 1942. According to one comrade of Kim's mother, Lee Min, word of Kim's birth first reached an army camp in Vyatskoye via radio and that both Kim and his mother did not return there until the following year. Reports indicate that his mother died in childbirth in 1949.