From this picture I have found online
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cys2T5FgJdo/SXSq0GdggTI/AAAAAAAAFtI/GiWIEj3wCJ4/s320/Korean_dmz_map.png
It seems the the DMZ isn’t exactly the same as the border. Why was the DMZ laid out in such a manner? Is it because some type of geographical feature? Whats the point of having a DMZ is North Korea can just mass troops to the south of it right on the border? Which I think has been done. Doesn’t that contradict the purpose and mindset behind a DMZ?
The 38th parallel was the border before the war, but the DMZ is along what they call the “military demarcation line” which is roughly where the two armies were at the time of the armistice. It for all practical purposes serves as the border these days and everyone’s armies are parked outside their respective side of the DMZ.
slight hijack
I read somewhere (no cite, sorry) that the DMZ is one of the world’s great wildlife preserves. Since the end of the war, everything inside has been more or less “locked in” and there hasn’t been any human hunting since the DMZ was created. Survival of the fittest, natural selection, and all that allowed to thrive for 60+ years. I’d love to get in there and see what’s going on.
Double hijack, but just to add, if case anybody doesn’t already know this by now, another much larger unanticipated wildlife preserve is the exclusion zone around Chernobyl.
Another strange “nature preserve” is the Hanford site in Washington (which includes a natural stretch of the Columbia River). That is, if you consider 3 eyed salmon “natural”.
The Nevada Test Site and the attached Nellis AFB Range Complex exclude humanity from some 10,000 square miles.
As a long time Las Vegas resident, we always told the tourists who ventured out into the national parks nearby to be on the lookout for the “Test Site Tortoise”. They were rare, but easy to recognize because they were the size of VW beetles.
What? People went out and let their VW’s to rot? Ha!
