Korean War Casualties
The Korean War was relatively short but exceptionally bloody. Nearly 5 million people died. More than half of these–about 10 percent of Korea’s prewar population–were civilians.
Bombing of North Korea
Armstrong estimated that 12–15 percent of the North Korean population (c. 10 million) was killed in the war, or approximately 1.2 million to 1.5 million people.[21] Armstrong did not separately determine how many of these deaths were among civilians or caused by U.S. bombing. Estimates of North Korean military deaths range from a U.S. Department of Defense estimate of 214,899 to a Correlates of War estimate of 316,579, according to the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) Battle Deaths Dataset.[33]
