North Korea is likely the most isolated and secretive place in the world right now. Yet, at the time of this writing, FRED has 52 data series related to this country: Half the series are from the Bureau of the Census and relate to exports to North Korea from 26 states; the other half are from the World Bank.

Some series have zeroes for all observations, such as net migration and Internet users, which seems accurate given the conditions in North Korea. Some series look relatively normal, just as they do for other countries. And some series are just plain peculiar: Above is the youth unemployment rate, which we did not expect to be so high in this mostly command economy. Below is the net interest margin for banks, which is negative by a large margin, indicating a financial sector dominated by non-market forces.

How these graphs were created: Search for North Korea and explore the choices.

Suggested by Christian Zimmermann.