The won and the chon: how the currency is built
The currency of the DPRK is the North Korean won (원), ISO 4217 code KPW. The subdivided unit is the chon (전), one hundredth of a won. If your crossword asks for a four-letter answer to “North Korea's currency” — it is won.
| Unit | Korean | Romanization | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Won (main) | 원 | won, KPW (ISO 4217) | Non-convertible, circulates only inside the DPRK |
| Chon (fractional) | 전 | chon, 1/100 won | Effectively out of circulation |
The won is a closed currency: it does not trade on any global market, and no bank outside North Korea will convert won into dollars, euros or rubles. Every “won exchange rate” shown by global aggregators is therefore a calculation, not a price discovered by trading.
Three dates: 1947, 1959, 2009
| Year | Event | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| 1947 | Won introduced | Replaced the Korean yen; 1 won = 100 chon |
| 1959 | Redenomination 100:1 | First revaluation; coins appeared the same year |
| 2009 | Redenomination 100:1 | Exchange window of one week, with a hard per-person cap |
The December 2009 redenomination is the pivotal date. Old won were exchanged for new at 100:1; citizens had about a week (until December 7), and amounts above the cap — first 100,000 old won, briefly raised to 200,000 — could only be exchanged at 1000:1, wiping out 90% of their value. Savings held in cash by much of the population evaporated within days.
Two exchange rates: official and jangmadang
The won has two parallel “prices”. The official rate — around 900 won per dollar — lives in state accounting and leaks into global currency aggregators. The real domestic price of money is set in the jangmadang (장마당), the private markets: a dollar typically cost 8,000–9,000 won through the 2010s, spiked to 15,000 in crisis years, and by October 2026 Daily NK's monitor network in Pyongyang, Sinuiju and Hyesan quoted about 69,000 won per dollar.
This is why “convert KPW to USD” widgets mislead: the 900-won figure says nothing about actual prices inside North Korea. The market rate moves week to week and city to city — there is no single reliable won quote.
Money in DPRK Korean: the vocabulary
The northern standard, 문화어 (Munhwa'o), has its own money vocabulary — as distinct from the South's as northern 로씨야 is from southern 러시아. These words are verified against the KoryoTalk dictionary layer:
| Northern word | Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 돈 | ton | money |
| 나라돈 | naraton | state currency, literally “country money” |
| 외화 | woehwa | foreign currency |
| 장마당 | jangmadang | market, including private ones |
| 지페 | chiphe | banknote, paper money |
| 동전 | tonjŏn | coin |
| 은행 | ŭnhaeng | bank |
| 조선중앙은행 | Chosŏn chungang ŭnhaeng | Central Bank of the DPRK |
Getting the norm right matters in money texts as much as anywhere: why ordinary translators silently output the Southern form is covered in our guide to the North Korean translator, and the two norms are compared in “One language or two?”.
Why the won “doesn't work”: the shadow of 2009
The 2009 redenomination was aimed in part at private trade — and it destroyed trust instead. Discontent was public: people burned piles of devalued banknotes. The authorities answered by assigning blame: in March 2010 Pak Nam-gi, the party finance official who led the reform, was executed by firing squad on charges of “deliberately wrecking the national economy”.
Since then everyday economics has run around the won: households save in foreign currency (외화) — mostly yuan and dollars — and jangmadang prices track them. The state periodically tries to reassert control, but market practice has settled: the won settles accounts with the state, while dollars and yuan store value.
Translating texts about the won
If you translate northern texts, sums in won are context markers: an official document and a market report treat money very differently. For crosswords and quick reference: North Korea's currency is the won, Korean 원, divided into 전. For real work you need a translator that keeps northern spellings intact instead of repainting the norm — that is what @KoryoTalk_bot does.
Working with North Korean texts?
KoryoTalk is a Telegram translator built around 조선어: a dictionary base of 2.2 million Korean–Russian entries plus a separately curated layer of verified northern equivalents. Texts about money, markets and prices come out in the northern norm — 문화어, not the Southern 표준어.