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The Gyeongui Line is one of the oldest railway lines in Korea. When the line opened in 1906, it connected Seoul in what is now South Korea to P'yŏngyang and Shinŭiju in what is now North Korea. At Seoul, the line connected with the Gyeongbu Line to Busan, while at Shinŭiju, the line connected with the South Manchuria Railway, linking the Korean railway system to the rest of Asia and Europe.
After the division of Korea in 1945, trains stopped operating between the north and south halves of the country, meaning that southern trains probably terminated at Kaesŏng, which is now in North Korea but was at the time part of the US-administered southern zone. Northern trains would have terminated north of Kaesŏng.
After the end of the Korean War in 1953, southern trains were cut back to around Munsan (north of Seoul), with northern trains terminating at Kaesŏng. Around the same time, North Korea renamed the P'yŏngyang-Kaesŏng section of the line as the P'yŏngbu ("P'yŏngyang" + "Busan") Line and the P'yŏngyang-Shinŭiju section as the P'yŏngui (P'yŏngyang-Shinŭiju) Line.
Since the summit between the two Koreas in 2000, an effort has slowly been underway to reconnect the Gyeongui Line. Southern passenger service has been extended to Dorasan on the edge of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and tracks have been built across the DMZ itself, but in early 2004, the northern connection from the DMZ to Kaesŏng was not yet completed.
The Seoul-Dorasan section of the line has frequent passenger trains.
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