North Korea–South Korea border
Not a border by treaty but the front line where the Korean War stopped in 1953. Each side pulled back 2 km from it, leaving a four-kilometre-wide strip that has been left almost untouched ever since, and the two states have never signed a peace.
Written from cited sourcesLast checked 26 September 2026Suggest a correction
See it on the globe:North Korea →South Korea →
A line of latitude, 1945
At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, US military planners chose latitude 38° N as an army boundary in Korea. Japanese forces north of it would surrender to the Soviet Union, and those south of it to the Americans.[2]
The division was meant to be temporary, but the Cold War produced two states: a US-oriented one in the South under Syngman Rhee and a communist one in the North under Kim Il-Sung.[2]
War, and the armistice line
The Korean War broke out in June 1950. UN forces under General Douglas MacArthur pushed north of the 38th parallel, China intervened, and the war settled into a stalemate roughly along the parallel.[2] Truce talks at Panmunjom lasted two years, and the armistice was signed there on 27 July 1953.[3]
The new line followed the front where the fighting stopped, not the parallel. South Korea kept a mountainous area in the east north of 38° N, and North Korea gained a triangle of land south of it, west of 127° E, including the city of Kaesŏng.[2] Each side pulled back 2 km, creating the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).[1]
The DMZ
The land either side of the DMZ is heavily fortified, with large numbers of troops on both sides.[1] Clashes flared from 1966 to 1969. In January 1968 a 31-man North Korean commando team crossed the DMZ to try to kill South Korea’s president, Park Chung-Hee. On 18 August 1976 North Korean soldiers killed two US Army officers who were trimming a tree in the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom.[1]
Mostly left alone since 1953, the DMZ has largely gone back to nature. It shelters hundreds of bird species, including endangered white-naped and red-crowned cranes, but it also holds more than a million land mines and other unexploded weapons.[1] A limited freight-train service across the zone began in mid-2007 and was stopped a year later, after North Korean guards shot a South Korean tourist.[1]
Handshakes and explosions
On 27 April 2018 Kim Jong Un stepped across the demarcation line at Panmunjom to meet South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in. At Kim’s invitation, the two stepped briefly into the North together, holding hands. It was the first meeting of the two countries’ leaders since 2007.[4]
In the 2000s the two Koreas had reconnected two roads and two railways across the border, but they later fell out of use.[5] On 15 October 2024 North Korea blew up the northern sections of those roads, after saying it would permanently seal the border. Two days later its state media said a revised constitution now defined South Korea as “a hostile state”.[5][6] South Korea’s Unification Ministry called that “an anti-unification, anti-national act.”[6]
Timeline
1945
The 38th parallel
US planners pick latitude 38° N to split the Japanese surrender in Korea.[2]
1950
Korean War
The Korean War breaks out in June.[2]
195327 July 1953
Armistice
The armistice is signed at Panmunjom, and the front line becomes the dividing line.[3]
1968
Raid on Seoul
North Korean commandos cross the DMZ to try to kill President Park.[1]
197618 August 1976
Axe murders
Two US officers are killed at Panmunjom while trimming a tree.[1]
2007
Trains across
Limited freight service across the DMZ begins, and is halted a year later.[1]
201827 April 2018
Panmunjom summit
Kim Jong Un crosses the line to meet Moon Jae-in.[4]
202415 October 2024
Roads blown up
North Korea destroys its sections of the cross-border roads.[5]
202417 October 2024
“A hostile state”
North Korea says its constitution now defines the South as a hostile state.[6]
Sources
- [1]Demilitarized zone (Korean peninsula) · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- [2]38th parallel · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- [3]P’anmunjŏm · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- [4]North Korea’s Kim Jong Un crosses DMZ line for historic meeting with South Korea · ABC News · 27 April 2018
- [5]North Korea blows up parts of inter-Korean roads as tensions with South Korea soar · NPR (Associated Press) · 15 October 2024
- [6]North Korea says revised constitution now defines South as ‘hostile state’ · Voice of America (Associated Press) · 17 October 2024
Map geometry from Natural Earth via world-atlas. See credits.