Division of Korea

The division of Korea began at the end of the Second World War in 1945, when the peninsula, annexed by Japan in 1910, was split at the 38th parallel into a Soviet occupation zone in the north and a US zone in the south. Two American officers chose the line on 10 August 1945 using a National Geographic map, placing Seoul in the American zone, and a four-power trusteeship agreed in Moscow that December was never carried out. In 1948 the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea were founded, each claiming the whole peninsula. North Korea's invasion in 1950 began the Korean War, and the 1953 armistice left Korea divided along the Demilitarized Zone, as it remains.