Panmunjom

Panmunjom
Korean transcription(s)
• Chosŏn'gŭl
• Hancha
• McCune-Reischauer	P'anmunjŏm
• Revised Romanization	Panmunjeom
The North Korea Peace Museum which is the only remaining building in the village.
Panmunjom
Coordinates: 37°57′22″N 126°40′37″E / 37.956°N 126.677°E / 37.956; 126.677
Country	North Korea
Province	North Hwanghae

Panmunjom, now located in North Hwanghae Province, was a village just north of the de facto border between North and South Korea, where the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement that paused the Korean War was signed. The building where the armistice was signed still stands, though it is north of the Military Demarcation Line, which runs through the middle of the Demilitarized Zone.

Its name is often used as a metonym for the nearby Joint Security Area (JSA), where discussions between North and South Korea still take place in blue buildings that straddle the Military Demarcation Line. As such, it is considered one of the last vestiges of the Cold War.

The site of the former village is 53 kilometers north-northwest of Seoul and 10 kilometers east of Kaesong and was the meeting place of the Military Armistice Commission. The meetings took place in several tents set up on the north side of the Kaesong-Seoul road on the west bank of the Sa'cheon stream.

The village, a small cluster of fewer than ten huts, was opposite the negotiation site on the south side. The eighteen copies of Volume I and II of the armistice were signed by the Senior Delegates of each side in a building constructed by both sides over a 48-hour period. (North Korea provided labor and some supplies, the United Nations Command provided some supplies, generators and lighting to allow the work to continue at night.)

After the Armistice Agreement was signed, construction began in September 1953 on a new site located approximately one kilometer east of the village; this is the Joint Security Area and all meetings between North Korea and the United Nations Command or South Korea have taken place here since its completion. The JSA is often metonymously referred to as Panmunjom.