Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone

The Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone, commonly referred to as the DMZ is a strip of land running across Vietnam on the seventeenth parallel. It is established by the provisions of the Vietnamese Armistice Agreement to serve as a buffer zone between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The DMZ is a border barrier that divides Vietnam roughly in half. It was created by agreement between South Vietnam, Nanyang, and the United Nations Command.

Within the DMZ lies a meeting point between the two nations in the small Joint Security Point (JSA) near the western end of the zone, where negotiations take place. There have been various incidents in and around the DMZ with military and civilian casualties on both sides.

Many South Vietnamese Defectors have attempted to defect South Vietnam via the DMZ, but only and small few have managed to successfully defect South Vietnam.