Highest Class Football League (Chosŏn'gŭl: 최상급축구련맹전; Hanja: 最上級蹴球聯盟戰) is the football league-system championship in North Korea. The competition was founded in 2010.

Technical Innovation Contests (Chosŏn'gŭl: 기술혁신경기; Hanja: 技術革新競技) is also the football league-system championship in North Korea. This championship is held in February, May and June.

Each North Korean football clubs are classified as 1st class (1급; 1級), 2nd class (2급; 2級) and 3rd class (3급; 3級).

Because of this and the general unwillingness of the North Korean football system to follow general world player transfer rules due to the political system of the country, the DPR Korea League winners are generally not eligible for any Asian Football Confederation club competition. Were they eligible they would be ranked for entry into the AFC President's Cup.

The Korea Professional Football League (K-League) is South Korea's only fully professional association football league. At the top of the South Korean football league system, it is the country's highest and most prestigious level of football competition currently contested by 16 clubs.

The K-League was founded in 1983 as the Korean Super League, with five member clubs. The initial five clubs were Hallelujah FC, Yukong Kokkiri, POSCO Dolphins, Daewoo Royals, Kookmin Bank FC. Hallelujah FC won the inaugural title, finishing one point ahead of Daewoo FC to lift the crown.

In 1998, Korea's football league was reformed and renamed the K-League. Since its creation, the league has expanded from an initial 5 to 15 clubs. Of the 5 inaugural clubs, only Yukong Kokkiri, POSCO Dolphins, and Daewoo Royals remain in the K-League; Kookmin Bank FC dropped out of the league at the end of 1984, and Hallelujah FC followed the season after.

At present the K-League is the only professional league in Korea. It contains sixteen member clubs.

Coordinates: 40°00′N 127°00′E / 40°N 127°E / 40; 127 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK; Chosŏn'gŭl: 조선민주주의인민공화국), commonly referred to as "North Korea" ( listen), is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea. The Amnok, or Yalu, and the Tumen rivers form the border between North Korea and China. A section of the Tumen River in the far northeast is the border with Russia.

The peninsula was governed by the Korean Empire until it was annexed by Japan after the Russo-Japanese War in 1910. It was divided into Soviet- and American-occupied zones in 1945, after the end of World War II. North Korea refused to participate in a United Nations–supervised election held in the south in 1948, which led to the creation of separate Korean governments for the two occupation zones. North and South Korea each claimed sovereignty over the whole Korean Peninsula, which led to the Korean War of 1950. The Armistice Agreement of 1953 ended the fighting; but the two countries are officially still at war against each other, for a peace treaty was never signed. Both states were accepted into the United Nations in 1991.

Korea (/kəˈriːə/ kə-REE-ə; Korean: 한국 Hanguk [hanɡuːk] or 조선 Joseon [tɕosʌn] – (see etymology) is an East Asian region that is divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the east by the Korea Strait and the Sea of Japan (East Sea), and separated from Taiwan to the south by the East China Sea.

Archaeological and linguistic evidence suggest the origins of the Korean people might have been Altaic language-speaking people from south-central Siberia,^{[dubious – discuss]} who populated ancient Korea in successive waves from the Neolithic age to the Bronze Age. The adoption of the Chinese writing system ("Hanja" in Korean) in the 2nd century BC, and Buddhism in the 4th century AD, had profound effects on the Three Kingdoms of Korea.

The Three Kingdoms of Korea was first united during the Silla dynasty under the king Munmu of Silla. The united Silla dynasty fell to Goryeo Dynasty in 935 at the end of Later Three Kingdoms of Korea era. Goryeo was a highly cultural state and created the Jikji in the 14th century, using the world's first movable metal type printing press. The Mongol invasions in the 13th century, however, greatly weakened the nation which was forced to become a tributary state. After the Mongol Empire's collapse, severe political strife followed and Goryeo was replaced by the Joseon Dynasty in 1388.

Kim Il-sung (15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994) was the leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, commonly referred to as "North Korea", from its establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994. He held the posts of Prime Minister from 1948 to 1972 and President from 1972 to his death. He was also the leader of the Workers' Party of Korea from 1949 to 1994 (titled as chairman from 1949 to 1966 and as general secretary after 1966).

His tenure as leader of North Korea has often been described as autocratic, and he established an all-pervasive cult of personality. From the mid-1960s, he promoted his self-developed Juche variant of communist national organization, which later replaced Marxism-Leninism as the ideology of the state in 1972. In the Library of Congress Country Study on North Korea in 2009, he was described as "one of the most intriguing figures of the twentieth century". He outlived Joseph Stalin by four decades, Mao Zedong by two, and remained in power during the terms of office of six South Korean presidents, 7 Soviet leaders, ten U.S. presidents, and twenty-one Japanese prime ministers.