Heavily armed North and South Korean forces are aligned against each other. There's little movement along the demilitarised military zone -- DMZ -- that separates North and South Korea.
Barbed wires, watchtowers and landmines dot the DMZ -- it is the most heavily-fortified border in the world! The North and South Korean troops stand prepared for a battle anytime.
The two sides have remained in a formal state of war since an armistice ended combat in the Korean War in 1953. The DMZ was established then and there has never been a peace treaty.
We take a look at life on the DMZ where there's no sign of tension easing, where the Cold War still persists.
United States President Barack Obama visits the US military personnel stationed at Observation Post Ouellette along the Demilitarised Zone which borders North and South Korea, outside Seoul, March 25. Obama visited South Korea's tense border with the North on Sunday in a show of solidarity with US ally Seoul and a message of resolve to Pyongyang's new young ruler in his country's nuclear standoff with the West.
Obama looks along the border between North and South Korea at Observation Post Ouellette along the DMZ outside Seoul, March 25. He is in South Korea to attend the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit.
Tourists look towards the North Korean side with pairs of binoculars at the Unification Observatory, near the DMZ which separates the two Koreas in Paju, north of Seoul.
A South Korean tourist enters the DMZ in his car to cross the border separating the two Koreas in Goseong, far northeast of South Korea as soldiers wave.
Holding a flower, a South Korean girl playing the role of a North Korean girl walks through the opening of a gate leading into the demilitarised zone during aground breaking ceremony to relink railways and roads.
South Korean soldiers patrol near the DMZ separating North Korea and South Korea in Paju, north of Seoul.
A North Korean soldier smiles as he talks with fellow soldier at the truce village of Panmunjom, in the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas, in Paju, north of Seoul south of Pyongyang.
North Korean soldiers stand on their observation post near Panmunjom truce village in the DMZ separating the two Koreas, in Paju, north of Seoul.
North Korean soldiers (top right) look across a concrete border as a US army soldier (2nd from left) and South Korean soldiers stand guard at the truce village of Panmunjom in the DMZ, in Paju, 55 km north of Seoul.
A South Korean soldier, who stands on the North Korean side in the United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission Conference Building, looks at visitors next to a door leading to the North, in the truce village of Panmunjom in the DMZ.
Former North Korean defectors and anti-North Korea activists release balloons carrying anti-North Korea leaflets and North Korean banknotes towards the north at the Imjinkak pavilion, near the DMZ.
A North Korean soldier looks south at a guard post in the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas.
Park Sang-hak, a former North Korean defector and an anti-North Korea activist living in South Korea, fires a tear gas pistol as a policeman tries to block him in Imjinkak pavilion near the DMZ
A North Korean soldier looks in through the window of the T2 building as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates tour the DMZ on July 21, 2010.
North and South Korean soldiers stand guards at the truce village of Panmunjom in the demilitarised zone separating the two countries.
US marines make their way to training at the US Army's Rodriguez Live Firing Range in Pocheon, south of the demilitarised zone
A US AH-64 Apache helicopter fires missiles during a live fire gunnery exercise with the South Korean army at the US army's Rodriguez range in Pocheon.
A North Korean soldier looks inside a room through a window as Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico visits the truce village of Panmunjom, in the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas, north of Seoul.
A North Korean flag flutters on top of a tower at the propaganda village of Gijungdong in the DMZ.
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