In what year did the Korean War end?

The Korean War ended in 1953, when the Korean Armistice Agreement stopped active fighting on July 27.

The war began on June 25, 1950, when North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel and invaded South Korea. United Nations forces, led largely by the United States, supported South Korea, while China intervened on North Korea’s side. Fighting shifted repeatedly across the peninsula before settling near the original dividing line.

The 1953 agreement was an armistice, not a peace treaty. It created a Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, roughly four kilometers wide near the battle line and established arrangements for prisoners of war. South Korea did not sign the agreement, and no formal peace treaty followed, so the conflict is often described as technically unresolved even though large-scale combat ended in 1953.

The armistice also explains why 1953 is the standard answer rather than 1954, the year of later diplomatic efforts. A conference in Geneva in 1954 attempted to reach a permanent settlement, but it did not produce a peace treaty or reunify Korea.