According to a yearbook published by North Korea's official KCNA News Agency, the population of the Stalinist state numbered some 23.1 million in 2001.

The yearbook claimed the population had increased by around 240-thousand in 1997 and that the figure had climbed by an average of 200-thousand annually until 2001.

Meanwhile, Huali Bank, a joint North Korea-China institution, posted on its Internet homepage last July that the North's population was estimated at 22-and-a-half million, around 650-thousand less than the figure presented by the KCNA yearbook.

However, the bank's figure is regarded to be inaccurate since chronic food shortages in the reclusive state have slightly improved since 2000, reportedly curbing the number of North Koreans who died of starvation.