Division of Korea

The division of Korea into North Korea and South Korea stems from the 1945 Allied victory in World War II, ending Japan's 35-year colonial rule of Korea. In a proposal opposed by nearly all Koreans, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to temporarily occupy the country as a trusteeship with the zone of control demarcated along the 38th parallel. The purpose of this trusteeship was to establish a Korean provisional government which would become "free and independent in due course."

Though elections were scheduled, the Soviet Union refused to cooperate with United Nations plans to hold general and free elections in the two Koreas, and as a result, a Communist state was permanently established under Soviet auspices in the north and a pro-Western state was set up in the south. The two superpowers backed different leaders and two states were effectively established, each of which claimed sovereignty over the whole Korean peninsula.

The Korean War (1950–53) left the two Koreas separated by the Korean Demilitarized Zone through the Cold War to the present day. North Korea is a communist state often described as Stalinist and isolationist. Its economy initially enjoyed substantial growth but collapsed in the 1990s, unlike that of its Communist neighbor People's Republic of China. South Korea remained one of the poorest countries in the world for over a decade, then after decades of authoritarian rule, and an industrial boom starting in the 1970s, emerged as a wealthy, high-income free market democracy.

The 2000s saw improved relations between the two sides, overseen in the south by liberal governments. These changes were largely reversed under conservative South Korean president Lee Myung-bak who opposed the north's continued development of nuclear weapons.