they lack agricultural land, and decades of sanctions and bad harvests later, they never recovered. a lot of their manufacturing is old and decrepit. north korea is even more mountainous and this places it at a deep disadvantage without modern land management.  south korea just kept getting rebuilt, and given that they were worked like slaves in the past, they took to industrialization well. they're braking though, south korea is being drained of blood by its own. it's a modern feudal society.
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