Which parallel did General Order No. 1 use to divide surrender zones in Korea in 1945?

General Order No. 1 used the 38th parallel to divide surrender zones in Korea in 1945.

Under the order, Japanese forces north of the 38th parallel surrendered to the Soviet commander in the Far East. Japanese forces south of it surrendered to the commander of U.S. Army Forces in the Pacific.

This military boundary was not originally a permanent national border. It became the practical dividing line between Soviet and American occupation zones after Japan’s surrender, helping produce the separate political development of North and South Korea.

The order therefore connected Japan’s capitulation with the early Cold War division of the Korean Peninsula. The later Korean Demilitarized Zone followed a different line established after the Korean War, so the 38th parallel and today’s DMZ should not be treated as identical.