Satellite images of Asia at night are eerily beautiful, illuminated as they are by hundreds and thousands of bursts of light. That light is what civilization looks like from space. It's the glow of fluorescent bulbs in office buildings and warm lamps in homes and bright runways crisscrossing airports. It's electricity and technology and wealth. The images tell the story of one of humanity's most ancient and widespread victories: the triumph over darkness.
In the modern world, artificial light is everywhere. Geographers use nighttime satellite imagery to make shockingly accurate estimates about rural villages, urban supermetropolises and everything between. Asia, in particular, is ablaze in illumination — with one exception. When the sun goes down, North Korea goes dark.
In 1950, each newly cleaved half of Korea was about as rich as the other. Data published by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development estimates that the per-capita gross domestic product — the annual economic production divided by the number of citizens — was the same in both nations.