The two Koreas will compete as a unified team in the Olympics for the first time, though they have joined forces at other international sports events before.
North Korea will send a delegation of more than 400, including 230 cheerleaders, 140 artists and 30 Taekwondo players for a demonstration, a joint press statement released by Seoul's unification ministry said, adding the precise number of athletes will be hammered out after discussions with the IOC.
Prior to the Games, the sides will carry out joint training for skiers at the North's Masik Pass resort and a cultural event at the Mount Kumgang resort, for which Seoul officials plan to visit the sites next week.
The delegation is expected to begin arriving in South Korea on Jan. 25, the statement said.
The North will separately send a 150-strong delegation to the Paralympics. Twenty nations meeting in the Canadian city of Vancouver agreed on Tuesday to consider tougher sanctions to press North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned the North it could trigger a military response if it did not choose dialogue.
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono said the world should not be naive about North Korea's "charm offensive" over the Olympics.
"It is not the time to ease pressure, or to reward North Korea," Kono said. "The fact that North Korea is engaging in dialogue could be interpreted as proof that the sanctions are working."
The Unification Flag of Korea, which both North and South Korean Olympians will use to represent them in the games.
On Sunday, female  players from  and  joined one another for a training session before the upcoming Winter Olympics. Players from the two Koreas are to compete together as a united team for the events hosted in , South Korea, which are scheduled to start on February 9; Seoul's Unification Ministry said. The cross-border gesture is part of diplomatic efforts to ease tensions on the divided  and the team was approved by the .

The  selected Pyeongchang in 2011 to host the event, marking South Korea's first opportunity since the  in . The earlier event was marred by violence as North Korea had  several months prior, killing over 100 and boycotted the event. Inter-Korean relations have changed considerably in the ensuing thirty years, including the two sending unified teams for table tennis and youth football in other non-Olympic competitions.

The announcement that the two countries would compete together was a stated goal of South Korean President . Last year, he announced the proposal and the two nations went into discussion this month. After two weeks, they made the announcement to field a consolidated 35-strong team of ice hockey players and have joint skiing exercises with both team coaches involved.

According to Yonhap News Agency estimates, about 80% of South Koreans support dialogue, but the move to have a joint team has been controversial. Over 10,000 South Korean citizens sent a petition to South Korean President Moon opposing the union and a group of North Korean  held a protest at the South Korean  on January 24, tearing apart photos of the North Korean leader, . Public support for eventual reunification of the Korean peninsula has waned in recent years, with the younger generation more skeptical of the possibility.