country military police 
___MASK88___ , officially the Republic of Korea ( ROK ), is a sovereign state in East Asia , constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula . Hanja is the Korean name for ___MASK74___ characters . More specifically , it refers to those ___MASK74___ characters borrowed from ___MASK74___ and incorporated into the Korean language with Korean pronunciation . " Hanja - mal " or " hanja - eo " refers to words that can be written with hanja , and " hanmun " refers to Classical ___MASK74___ writing , although " hanja " is sometimes used loosely to encompass these other concepts . Because hanja never underwent major reform , they are almost entirely identical to traditional ___MASK74___ and " kyjitai " characters . Only a small number of hanja characters are modified or unique to Korean . By contrast , many of the ___MASK74___ characters currently in use in ___MASK85___ and Mainland ___MASK13___ have been simplified , and contain fewer strokes than the corresponding hanja characters . The Republic of ___MASK2___ Military Police ( ( MP ) , in Korean :  , `` Heon - byeong '' ) , are the uniformed law enforcement agencies of each respective branch of the Republic of ___MASK2___ Armed Forces . ROK Army MPs also function as a border guards at the Korean Demilitarized Zone . The Korean War ( in South Korean , " Korean War "; in North Korean , " Fatherland Liberation War "; 25 June 1950  27 July 1953 ) began when ___MASK36___ invaded ___MASK88___ . The United Nations , with the United States as the principal force , came to the aid of ___MASK88___ . China came to the aid of ___MASK36___ , and the Soviet Union gave some assistance . The division of ___MASK2___ between North and ___MASK88___ was the result of the Allied victory in World War II in 1945 , ending the Empire of Japan ' s 35 - year rule of ___MASK2___ . The United States and the Soviet Union occupied the country , with the boundary between their zones of control along the 38th parallel . The Republic of ___MASK2___ Armed Forces ( Hanja :  ; Revised Romanization : " Daehanminguk Gukgun ", literally " Great Korean Republic National Military ") are also known as the ROK Armed Forces , are the armed forces of ___MASK88___ . Created in 1948 , following the division of ___MASK2___ , the Republic of ___MASK2___ Armed Forces is one of the largest standing armed forces in the world with a reported personnel strength of 3 , 600 , 000 in 2014 ( 630 , 000 active and 2 , 970 , 000 reserve ). The ROK military forces are responsible for maintaining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the republic , but often engage in humanitarian and disaster - relief efforts nationwide . More recently the ROK military began increasing its participation in international affairs , acknowledging its role and responsibility as the eleventh economic power in the world in terms of GDP . The ROK military has participated in various peacekeeping operations , and counter - terrorism operations . The Korean Demilitarized Zone ( DMZ ) is a highly militarized strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula . It was established at the end of the Korean War to serve as a buffer zone between the Democratic People ' s Republic of ___MASK2___ ( ___MASK36___ ) and the Republic of ___MASK2___ ( ___MASK88___ ). The DMZ is a " de facto " border barrier that divides the Korean Peninsula roughly in half . It was created by agreement between ___MASK36___ , China and the United Nations in 1953 . The DMZ is long , and about wide . The Korean Peninsula is a peninsula in ___MASK11___ . It extends southwards for about from continental Asia into the Pacific Ocean and is surrounded by the Sea of ___MASK85___ ( East Sea ) to the east , and the Yellow Sea ( West Sea ) to the west , the Korea Strait connecting the first two bodies of water .