Joint Security Area - Major Landmarks

Notable landmarks within the JSA include the Bridge of No Return and the tree where the Axe Murder Incident of 1976 took place.

One of the small blue buildings in the JSA is the MAC Conference Room, where talks take place between both sides, while the other one was the UNC Joint Duty Office building. These buildings are set squarely on the MDL, which bisects the center of a green-felt-covered conference table inside the MAC Conference Room, and is marked on the ground between the buildings on Conference Row by several 17×5" concrete slabs. Since the Commission headquarters of each side is located outside the conference area—in Seoul for the UNC and in Kaesong for the KPA/CPV—both sides maintain a Joint Duty Officer (JDO) at the JSA to provide continuous liaison. The JDOs meet to pass communications from the senior member or secretary of their sides. The Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC) also has buildings inside the JSA to conduct business, but after the fall of communism in Poland and Czechoslovakia (the KPA/CPV delegation), North Korea dismissed them from representing their side, leaving only Sweden and Switzerland (the UNC delegation) as representatives.

Above the interpreter's station in the southern half of the MAC Conference room is a plexiglas-covered board on which the flags of the nations that are part of the UN Joint Command are printed. There used to be a shelf with miniature silk flags on small poles in that spot, but the shelf was removed after two North Korean soldiers showed disrespect by defacing the flags of both the United States and South Korea.

On the opposite side of the UNC Joint Duty Office building from the MAC Conference Room is a building officially titled "KPA Recreation Room". However, there is no recreation equipment in this building. North Korean Soldiers would go into the building during MAC Conferences, part the curtains, and make both rude and threatening gestures through the windows. U.S. and ROK troops gave the building the derisive nickname "The Monkey House" because of these antics.

The above pictures also show an expansion over the years of the main North Korean building in the area, Panmungak. The North Koreans however haven't been the only ones expanding or constructing new buildings. On July 9, 1998, South Korea constructed a newer (and much larger) Freedom House within the JSA.

Because hostilities still exist between the two countries, tourists are not allowed to cross the border at the JSA. And although both sides may allow tourists to go inside the MAC Conference Room and the other buildings set squarely on the MDL, visitors are also forbidden from exiting the other door into the other country.