New images released from NASA have shown North Korea in darkness, while its neighbouring nations flourish.
Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) took a night image of the Korean Peninsula while flying over East Asia.
NASA says that, unlike daylight images, city lights at night illustrate the "relative economic importance of cities", as gauged by size.
In this north-looking view, it is immediately obvious that Seoul is a major city and that the port of Gunsan is minor by comparison.
There are 25.6 million people in the Seoul metropolitan area, while the population of Gunsan is 280,000.
But one striking element is that North Korea is almost completely dark compared to neighbouring South Korea and China.
The darkened land appears as if it were a patch of water joining the Yellow Sea to the Sea of Japan. The capital Pyongyang, appears like a small island, despite a population of 3.26 million.
The light emission from Pyongyang is equivalent to the smaller towns in South Korea, NASA says.
A video of the fly-by - as seen from the ISS on January 30th - can be viewed below.
