It had been an independent country for much of its history, but following 1905, Korea was annexed by Japan. During the Second World War, Korea was split in two with North Korea under the Soviet sponsored Communist domination and South Korea a U.S. backed republic. Then North Korea attacked attempting to unite the two countries.
Thus the Korean War (1950-53) ensued and with the aid of the U.N. backed U.S. forces, South Korea was able to hold the invading forces on the 38th parallel. The Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) came into effect, it serves as a buffer zone. The war alone cost over three million casualties.
A strip of land across the Korean Peninsula, 248 kilometers long and approximately 4 kilometers wide, the DMZ is U.N. monitored and the most heavily armed border in the world.
North Korea's failure to win the war and unite with the south and under Communism, it responded by discarding the traditional Korean flag, and later revised it to reflect more closely with that of the USSR. The
North Korea National flag contains three horizontal bands of blue (top), red (that is three times the width), and blue; the red band is edged in white; and on the hoist side of the red band is a white disk with a five pointed star.
Although the Communist state retained the colors, they gave prominence to the color red and added a red star on the disk. The red stripe expresses revolutionary traditions while the red star is for Communism. The two blue stripes on the other hand stands for sovereignty, peace and friendship, the white stripe is for purity and red obviously is for revolutionary patriotism and Communism.
by:
The Flagman
