page_title: Religion in North Korea
section_title: After the division
hierarchical_section_title: Religion in North Korea / History / After the division
caption_attribution_description: English: Bohyeon temple in Myohyang Mountain, DPRK한국어: 묘향산의 보현사
context_page_description: There are no known official statistics of religions in North Korea. Officially, North Korea is an atheist state. Based on estimates from the late 1990s and the 2000s, North Korea is mostly irreligious, with the main religions being Korean shamanism and Chondoism. There are small communities of Buddhists and Christians. Chondoism is represented in politics by the Party of the Young Friends of the Heavenly Way, and is regarded by the government as Korea's "national religion" because of its identity as a minjung and "revolutionary anti-imperialist" movement.
context_section_description: The Korean Peninsula was divided into two states in 1945, the communist north and the non-communist south. Most of the Korean Christians, that had been until then in the northern half of the peninsula, fled to South Korea. By contrast, most of Korean Chondoists remained in the newly formed North Korea. At the time of the partition they were 1.5 million, or 16% of North Korea's population. They participate to the politics of North Korea through the Party of the Young Friends of the Heavenly Way. In 1994 the Central Guidance Committee of the Korean Chondoist Association organised an impressive ceremony at the newly constructed Mausoleum of Dangun (mythical founder of the Korean nation) near Pyongyang.
  According to some estimates in 2005 in North Korea there are 3,846,000 (16% of the total population) believers of Korean shamanism, 3,245,000 (13.5%) Chondoists, 1,082,000 (4.5%) Buddhists, and 406,000 (1.7%) Christians.
  In 2007 there were approximately 800 Chondoist churches throughout the country and a large central building in Pyongyang, 60 Buddhist temples (maintained more as cultural relics than places of worship), and 5 Christian churches—three Protestant churches, one Catholic church, and one Russian Orthodox church, all of which located in Pyongyang.
  In 2014, the Korea Conference of Religions for Peace held an inter-Korean meeting at Mount Kumgang, North Korea, and another is planned in 2017 in Pyongyang.
caption: Delegation of the group "Modern American Buddhism", of Korean Americans in New York City,[26] at Pohyonsa in 2013.
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