North Korea And Finland Share Border

The world map in our minds often creates vast distances between seemingly unrelated places. A stable Nordic democracy like Finland and the isolated state of North Korea feel like they belong on opposite sides of the globe. Geographically, however, they are surprisingly close neighbors (Review), separated by the territory of just a single nation. That nation is Russia, whose immense landmass acts as a bridge spanning the 11 time zones between its Finnish border in Europe and its short, 17-kilometer frontier with North Korea in the Far East.

This geographical quirk is a direct relic of 20th-century history and the sheer scale of the former Soviet Union. Finland’s modern border was largely defined by conflicts with its powerful eastern neighbor, solidifying after World War II. On the other side of the continent, the border between Russia and North Korea was born from the same conflict's aftermath. Following Japan's surrender, the Soviet Union occupied the northern half of the Korean peninsula, establishing a frontier along the Tumen River that the newly formed Democratic People's Republic of Korea would inherit. This makes the proximity of Helsinki and Pyongyang a living echo of the Soviet era's vast geopolitical influence.