Why was the 38th parallel created

THE 38th parallel in question is a circle of latitude 38 degrees north of the equatorial plane. This line divides the Korean peninsula roughly in half (leaving about 56% of Korean territory on the northern side). The actual border between North and South Korea slants across this circle of latitude, finishing some distance north of it on the east coast. Nonetheless people (including this newspaper) often loosely refer to the border between the two Koreas as the “38th parallel”. Why has the name stuck?

As Japan neared defeat in the second world war, the Allies had to decide what to do with its colonies, including Korea. They had discussed running it jointly as a trusteeship, but without specifying the zones of occupation. Japan’s swift collapse in August 1945 lent new urgency to their deliberations. A possible dividing line was proposed by Colonels Charles Bonesteel and Dean Rusk during an all-night meeting on August 10th. They wanted the American zone to extend far enough north to include Seoul. But it also had to remain acceptable to the Soviet Union, which landed troops on Korea long before the Americans arrived. Bonesteel first thought the line should defer to provincial boundaries, but did not have a map of the provinces to hand. Instead he chose the 38th parallel. To Rusk’s surprise the Soviets accepted.

This dividing line was breached on June 25th 1950 when North Korea invaded the south. An armistice was not signed until July 27th 1953. In the first year of the war, the momentum of battle ebbed and flowed dramatically. But the 38th parallel remained a significant reference point throughout. It was named in the original United Nations resolution calling on the North Koreans to withdraw. It was also important to Mao Zedong, who entered the war to devastating effect when the UN forces ventured north of it. By June 1951, the UN forces had regained the upper hand, driving the Chinese back beyond the 38th parallel. But America’s political leaders were wary of pushing far beyond it lest they lose the support of their UN allies, draw the Soviet Union into the fray or provoke China to redouble its efforts. The Americans turned a deaf ear to the South Korean President, Syngman Rhee, who had long insisted on the reunification of his country. One of his colonels referred to the 38th parallel as “that damned line”.

After two more years of attritional warfare and stop-start negotiations, the two sides agreed to turn the frontline, as it stood, into a “military demarcation line” separating the two Koreas, with a so-called “demilitarised zone” extending two kilometres on either side. That is where the de facto border remains. It reflects where the warring parties stood when the fighting stopped not some arbitrary circle of latitude. And yet it would be hard to argue that the eventual border’s proximity to the 38th parallel was a coincidence. The two sides were willing to stop fighting because they felt the status quo had been restored. And that feeling reflected their proximity to that “damned line”.

The armistice line meanders in an east-west fashion across Korea, connecting what Koreans call the East Sea with Gyeonggi Bay, 148 miles (238 kilometers) away off the peninsula's west coast.

Although it approximates the positions held by communist and U.S.-led U.N. forces for most of the last two-thirds of the war, the MDL is not the same line that had divided Korea before North invaded South in June, 1950.

That line was the 38th parallel, whose origins as modern Korea's first intra-national boundary can be traced back to the final hours of World War II, when officials from the U.S. War and State Departments were preparing to negotiate with the Soviet Union over how Japanese-occupied Korea would be administered following Japan's surrender.

Future U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, then a colonel on General George Marshall's staff, and fellow Army staffer Col. Charles "Tic" Bonesteel were assigned with identifying a line of control that both the U.S. and the Soviets could agree to.

Time was of the essence: the Soviets had just entered the war against Japan, and American officials worried that they would rush in to occupy the entire Korean peninsula before the U.S., whose nearest troops were still 600 miles (966 kilometers) away on Okinawa, could establish its own presence on the mainland.

Rusk knew that the 38th parallel "made no sense economically or geographically"—Korea, in fact, had enjoyed unity and a high degree of geographic continuity for the better part of a millennium—but this was now the Cold War. "Military expediency" had to rule the day. Korea, it was thought, would be divided only temporarily.

Rusk later recalled the experience in his 1991 memoir, As I Saw It:

During a meeting on August 14, 1945, the same day as the Japanese surrender, [Bonesteel] and I retired to an adjacent room late at night and studied intently a map of the Korean peninsula. Working in haste and under great pressure, we had a formidable task: to pick a zone for the American occupation. Neither Tic nor I was a Korea expert, but it seemed to us that Seoul, the capital, should be in the American sector. We also knew that the U.S. Army opposed an extensive area of occupation. Using a National Geographic map, we looked just north of Seoul for a convenient dividing line but could not find a natural geographical line. We saw instead the thirty-eighth parallel and decided to recommend that ... [Our commanders] accepted it without too much haggling, and surprisingly, so did the Soviets.

Thus was the Korean peninsula first divided. Early attempts to merge the two occupation zones back into a single, united Korea failed. And by late summer of 1948 the independent and increasingly antagonistic states of North and South Korea had been established.

Within two years, the two new nations would be in a war that eventually left 2.5 million Koreans dead, injured, or reported missing. And, 60 years later, still divided.

Today’s Wonder of the Day was inspired by Jaden. Jaden Wonders, “Why is North Korea closed off ?” Thanks for WONDERing with us, Jaden!

Have you ever spent much time studying a globe? Flat maps are great, but there's nothing quite like seeing Earth as it really is. Globes give you a perspective on where things are that you usually can't get from a flat map.

As you study a globe, you'll notice lines of latitude that circle the Earth and extend north and south of the equator. There are also lines of longitude that run the other way, east and west of the prime meridian.

You can search all day long, but you'll never see any of these lines in person. Why? They're imaginary! They're just a convenient way to pinpoint places and around the planet.

In fact, the very spot where you're sitting right now has a set of coordinates that corresponds to the exact latitude and longitude of your location. If you own a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or a smartphone with a GPS chip, you can find out and tell others exactly where you are!

In addition to the equator, there's another line of latitude that many people know by name: the 38th parallel. Specifically, it's the 38th parallel north that people know as the approximate boundary between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (more commonly known as North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (more commonly known as South Korea).

Many people assume that the 38th parallel separates North and South Korea as a result of the Korean War. In reality, the boundary existed before the Korean War and dates back to the end of World War II.

As World War II came to an end, the Allies had to decide how to handle Japan's colonies, which included Korea. At that time, Korea was one entity that occupied the whole Korean peninsula.

Troops from the Soviet Union had already arrived in the northern part of Korea. The tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union that would define the Cold War between the countries had already started.

The United States knew it would be a while before it could get troops to Korea, and it worried that the Soviet Union would take advantage of its absence by taking over all of Korea. U.S. Colonels Charles Bonesteel and Dean Rusk met on August 10, 1945, to develop a plan to divide Korea into two zones of occupation.

Using a National Geographic map, they noticed that the 38th parallel roughly divided Korea in half. They suggested using it as a boundary, since it would keep Seoul, the capital, in the southern half to be controlled by the U.S. To their surprise, the Soviets agreed.

Unfortunately, peace on the Korean peninsula would not last long. On June 25, 1950, over 75,000 North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel and invaded South Korea. The U.S. quickly came to the aid of South Korea and the Korean War began as the first military action of the Cold War.

Although the military action played out all along the 38th parallel, the war was really a battle between the forces of communism on one side (North Korea backed by the Soviet Union and China) and capitalism on the other (South Korea backed by the United States). Neither side could gain a decisive advantage and casualties piled up with relatively little change in territory.

Eventually, an armistice signed in July 1953 brought the Korean War to an end. In total, about five million people died in the Korean War, including many civilians. The cease-fire line roughly followed the 38th parallel with only minor changes, and the country remains divided along that line still today.

A demilitarized zone (DMZ) was created along the boundary by pulling back troops two kilometers on each side. The DMZ stretches about 150 miles across the width of the peninsula and remains one of the most hostile borders in the world even today.