Two US Army officers divided a country of 25 million people in 30 minutes using a National Geographic map. No Korean was in the room. The line they drew is still there.
On the night of August 10, 1945, as the Soviet Union raced into northern Korea, two young American colonels — Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel — were given 30 minutes to draw a line dividing Korea into Soviet and American occupation zones. Working from a National Geographic map (no military maps were available), they chose the 38th parallel because it kept Seoul in the American zone. Neither spoke Korean. No Korean was consulted. Rusk later said he would almost certainly have chosen differently had he known the history of the region.
Korea had been a unified nation for centuries. Japan annexed it in 1910 and ruled it as a colony for 35 years, suppressing the Korean language, culture, and national identity. When Japan surrendered in August 1945, Koreans expected independence. What they got instead was occupation — Soviet forces moving in from the north, American forces landing in the south — and a division that was supposed to be temporary.
The Soviets, to everyone's surprise, accepted the American line immediately. They had already entered northern Korea and could have seized the whole peninsula before American forces arrived. Within weeks, the 38th parallel became a real border — movement across it required permits, then became illegal entirely. The temporary occupation line hardened into two incompatible states.
In the north, the Soviets installed Kim Il Sung, a Korean officer who had trained with the Red Army in Manchuria. Land reform redistributed property from Japanese colonizers to poor farmers. In the south, the Americans backed Syngman Rhee, a fiercely anti-communist Korean exile. Both men claimed to represent the legitimate government of all Korea. Both were right that the other was wrong.
The American occupation of the south was chaotic. Most US personnel spoke no Korean. The military government initially kept Japanese colonial administrators in their posts — a decision that outraged Koreans who had spent 35 years under Japanese rule. The Americans then lurched to the opposite extreme, dismissing experienced administrators and creating a power vacuum filled by competing factions.
By 1948, the temporary division had produced two separate governments. On August 15, the Republic of Korea was declared in the south. On September 9, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was declared in the north. Each claimed sovereignty over the entire peninsula. Each began building a military. Border skirmishes became regular. Between 1948 and 1950, more than 10,000 people died in clashes along the 38th parallel before the full-scale war even began.
On June 25, 1950, North Korea's army crossed the 38th parallel in force. The Korean War had begun — a conflict that would kill an estimated 3 million people, leave the peninsula in ruins, and end with both sides exactly where they started. The 38th parallel division the two colonels drew in 30 minutes has now lasted more than 75 years.
Korea remains the only country in the world divided as a Cold War consequence that has never reunified. The demilitarized zone — a 160-mile strip of land four kilometers wide — is one of the most heavily fortified borders on earth and, ironically, one of the most pristine wildlife habitats in Asia, undisturbed by human activity for seven decades.