Google Earth Calls ‘Sea of Japan’ the ‘East Sea’
The Marmot found this story describing how Korean netizens managed to convince google earth into changing the ‘Sea of Japan’ to the ‘East Sea’.
Google Earth has placed the Sea of Japan, used by 99% of the people on the planet to describe that sea, in brackets. What on earth are they thinking?
Out of 193 countries in the world, only Korea (South and North) describes the body of water separated from the Pacific Ocean by Japan as the ‘East Sea’. All the other countries rightly call it the ‘Sea of Japan’.
Not only is the ‘Sea of Japan’ a well established name, it also adheres to basic naming conventions because if Japanese archipelago were non existent, there would be no sea to speak of, only the Pacific Ocean. Going further, the ‘Sea of Japan’ is the official name and is accepted such by the UN and the International Hydrographic Organization. Lets look at this in point form.
1. The Sea of Japan is the official name recognised by the UN.
2. The Sea of Japan is the name it is known as by pretty much all English speakers.
3. Calling that sea the ‘East Sea’ does not make sense as the ‘East Sea’ is not the English name for that seas, but rather a translation from the Korean name.
4. The ‘East Sea’ gives no hint of the seas geographical location, but calling it the ‘Sea of Japan’ makes it instantly recognizable to everyone.
5. Without Japan, there would be no sea. Calling it the ‘East Sea’ makes no sense considering it is a mariginal sea.
7. A study of 1,435 maps published between 1300 and 1900 at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration by the Geographical Survey Institute of Japan revealed that 1,110 out of 1,435 maps use ‘Sea of Japan’.
8. Virtually no one outside Korea knows where the ‘East Sea’ is. The majority of publications on the internet or in print refer to it as the ‘Sea of Japan.
9. There are four countries that border the Sea of Japan and the two (Japan and Russia) that call it Sea of Japan have a greater coastline and population along the sea than the two countries (South and North Korea) that call it East Sea (East Sea of Korea). To Russia, the Sea of Japan is south and to Japan it is to the west. That being considered, why should Korea claim any special rights to the naming of that sea? This ‘East Sea’ is east of Korea only, and shows partisan Korean ethnocentrism.
10. The UN made a decision in 2004 regarding the international use of the ‘Sea of Japan’. As far as the international community is concerned, the body of water is officially reconfirmed as the ‘Sea of Japan’. For UN documents, only the ‘Sea of Japan’ is used – ‘East Sea’ is not even in brackets.
There is absolutely no reason for people in the west to have to consider narrow Korean reasoning when deciding what to call places, things or anything else in English. No one is telling Koreans that they cant use the ‘East Sea’ to describe the ‘Sea of Japan’ if they want to, but I say hands off the English language!
Lets hope that google earth comes to its senses.
Dont worry, Matt, I will do it for you.
お前らチョンコ達死ね。。。うざいチョンコ。
Koreans seems to love to dish it out, but cant take their own medicine.
Shibal hanGOOKseki deul..
Kubeen, this is the problem with abusive language. It causes others to use abusive language right back and does nothing to build international understanding. Dont you know the Korean proverb ‘가는 말이 고와야 오는 말이 곱다’? (meaning – ‘If the outgoing words are beautiful, then the incoming words will be beautiful, too’)
Lets keep this blog one where logical arguments are made, and not one with torrents of abusive language.
Koreans are just using emotion over fact, yet again. Let’s use logic, reasoning and rationality instead of emotion, primitive responses and caveman-like reactions. Take away Japan, and there is no longer a sea there anymore. It becomes the Pacific Ocean without Japan. Therefore, Japan being in existence plays the only part in the sea’s existence. Logic rules when emotions run wild.
To Kubeen; You didn’t answer my question. Except Korea, which country is calling that sea ‘East Sea’? The rest of the world have no reason to change the Sea of Japan to the East Sea or whatever name the bothered Koreans prefer.
“Therefore, Japan being in existence plays the only part in the sea’s existence.”
Aren’t you using emotion rather than logic? Read what I wrote.
“Except Korea, which country is calling that sea ‘East Sea’?”
Who cared about justice at that time? But only now we are treating this matter with prudence.
You got that right, Korea called that sea East Sea before any country called it Sea of Japan. As Katz said maps were produced in 19th century and Japan was being worldly recognized at that time.
Chon 게 시발 놈아 더러운 쪽바리입으로 성스러운 한국말쓰지마라
Chon and Kubeen, whoever they are, would have been tempbanned for a day were this my site. Not being able to forgo using maledictions shows that the two of you need a few more years to develop the neocortical capacity that an average person has at their disposal.
And if you don’t understand what I just said there’s a good reason for that.
Okay whoever Chon and Kubeen was, Mithridates did the right thing.
The only reason the World chose Sea of Japan over East Sea (or Korean Sea, was the map shows “朝鮮海” at 18th century, on both Japanese and Korean maps) is because Japan opened it’s harbors *by force* earlier than Korea. Thus Japan is more famous than the country that they *by force* opened it’s harbors.
I am a Korean-Canadian. Yes I write East Sea instead of Sea of Japan and flunk that question (Just like any students of Korean background). But I found it hilarious when HRW world Atlas stated “Sea of Japan (East Sea)” on South Korean atlas, when the Japanese atlas (made and provided by a same org.) only states “Sea of Japan”.
Why can’t Korea and Japan get together and make up a name that everyone can decide on? How about Northeastern Sea? or how about Liancourt Sea, or Dokdo(Takeshima) Sea? whenver the Dokdo incident clears up?
I sence a lot of hatred on your post right there.
Why can’t the world Just put East Sea(Sea of Japan) on every single map to make every customer happy?
Fighting over a name of a sea is stupid indeed.
“Why can’t the world Just put East Sea(Sea of Japan) on every single map to make every customer happy?
Fighting over a name of a sea is stupid indeed.”
Hey, temuchin. How stupid. I don’t know you realize that.
Why did you guys even make this racious and abusive web site?
This web site is going to make the relationship between Korea and
Japan even worse
Kubeen, I warned you about using offensive language and you still did it. You are now banned.
Hey, Kubeen, did you ever stop to notice that you were the one who started the racist mudslinging? My reponse to you was just that…an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth. If my comments hurt, then you should know you shouldnt have started it in the first place.
Typical Korean mentality..they cry and scream when it happens to them, but they see no problem in hurting others.
汚いKoreanたちはどうしょうもない。
Dont worry, Kubeen, I wouldnt speak your language even if I was tortured. Any language which sounds like someone regurgitating phlegm is not something which I would study. As a matter of fact, your nations language is just full of swear words…kind of indicative of the national character of you Koreans.
I think Kubeen is some stupid guy who poses under alot of false multiple identies on other webboards. Very typical practice of many Koreans on ht internet…very cowardly and underhanded.
Offensive posts and deleted and language edited. Keep it clean. Kubeen cant even see your answers because I have totally banned him from viewing the site, not just from making comments.
Googles should not take any political standing, not if
it is supposed to be a service company.
Google should just follow what is currently accepted as the
international standard. In this case, United Nations decision
would be one, meaning it should just show “Sea of Japan”.
Showing it as “Sea of Japan(East Sea)” will only invite other
disputated labels and may end up with something like
“Sea of Japan/East Sea/South Sea/Very South and Far Sea”.
And this can invite disputing other labels other than “Sea of Japan”;
as someone had said, would labels such as “Gulf of Mexico” and
other names need to be “Name 1/Name 2/Name 3″ and so on?
VANK should work on their government work on United Nations,
not spam Googles and other geopgraphy handling sites.
And such sites should not succumb to spamming and should do
more research.
If Google continues to show both “Sea of Japan” and “East Sea”,
they better be able to make a very good argument as to why
they are making a political stand or even creating a new name
in a global map.
Well google changed it back again…
The sea becomes the Pacific Ocean without Japan’s existence . Please explain what is emotional about stating this fact.
“The sea becomes the Pacific Ocean without Japan’s existence . Please explain what is emotional about stating this fact.”
The fact that you’re ignoring the facts and rather try to use logics in this, and i think facts are more important than logic in this matter. And even in logics we win.
Explain to us the facts and logic then, Katz. I am considering cracking down on you until you get IELTS 6.0.
To Katz; Tell me where is a divided line between the sea and Pacific Ocean. You are saying that the sea would exist without Japan, right? Also I want to know why Koreans insist on calling it the east sea other than the fact that they want to beat Japanese. Let’s hear Korean logic.
Personally I don’t care however you call it, but what would you think if Japanese began to appeal to the world like crazy Korea be called “fresh morning” because 朝means morning 鮮 means fresh, and Japan has been calling it 朝鮮＝fresh morning?
Now less than 3% of the documents in the world is written in this way, and Korea say “give up”, but young mind of Japanese now stands up to show that this nation should be called fresh morning.
“If everyone in the world starts calling it “fresh moring” it will not be called Korean anymore but it is fresh morning as we have been calling it.Let’s correct misconceived historical or cultural facts, from Japanese aspect, on the Internet, by sending e-mails.Let’s get our pride back”
And some of crazy Japanese start sending e-mails to Google, “Here is the documents, this nation has been called fresh morning, and this is Chinese documents. Look, they have called it fresh morning too, why don’t you change it”
The Japanese government starts praising them and begins supporting them..
And Google foolishly admit,”yes, you are right”,
“But since some people still call it Korea, and people of the nation want to spell it “Corea”, we put “fresh morning” and “Corea” beside “Korea” .
“Oh, yes, We won, We won. Justice triumphs at last, We are proud”
Don’t you think it is silly?
Let me withdraw “And even in logics we win.” to not offend anybody. Somehow I felt I shouldn’t have written this frase. But I won’t lower myself to answer such stupid questions.
Thanks Katz
Maybe you wrote to me.
I really appreciate you. I respect your patriotism.
You are one of the few Korean who are willing to talk with Japanese. I disagree with you on many points, but disagreements are not important, the will to talk, the will to participate in rational discussion is important when it comes to understanding differnt culture.
I also think my question was silly,but the point is there are structural similarities between this story and what’s going on on this issue.
I’ m interested in what you would say to this imagined young Japanese people if you were a counselor?
Sorry, I didn’t bothered to read you wrote, but I was referrering to mika.
So you can’t answer anything I presented, eh? How on earth do you expect people to take you seriously when you just repeatedly use the same irrational arguments that have been disproven every time?
Katz
No problem—so far as you bother to understand the implication of what VANK is doing by the illustraion I put up.
I am not sure I agree with the idea of the word “East” rendering the sea’s name invalid internationally. After all Britain managed to get the name “North Sea” Internationally recognised without anybody disputing it wasn’t North of their Country.
Its just one of many reasons.
The Japanese people talk. 97% map of the world does ‘ Sea of Japan ‘ as marking it does abandon. But Korean people talk. That 3% map of the world starts ‘ East Sea’ marking does. like this well! it turns and well! 20 first time it is not caught. Only moment the hour invest. show the force of the Korean netizen quite in Japan