[East Sea(10)] Usage of ‘East Sea’ in scientific, reference literature

Portion of the copy of the di Plano Carpini map of 1434. Maereum Orientale (EastSea) is clearly visible near the upper right portion of the land masses.

This is the 10th in a series of contributions and interview articles exploring standardization issues of the geographic names -- the “East Sea” and “Sea of Japan.” Various views on the geographic name of the sea body between the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese archipelago will be presented in the hopes of raising awareness of the controversy. -- Ed.Norman Cherkis became involved in East Sea/Sea of Japan issues in 1995. Among his responsibilities is as a consultant to the Korean Hydrographic and Oceanographic Administration regarding Korean seafloor toponyms in the East Sea. He is a vocal advocate for the adoption of usage of “East Sea” as an alternate name for Sea of Japan, and has published a number of papers on the subject, including a reference list of almost 700 papers that have been published in non-Korean journals.He is also involved in finding an international settlement to ensure that Dokdo is permanently recognized worldwide as South Korean territory. He was a participant and discussant in the recent International Dokdo Symposium in Washington D.C. He is an active member of the Advisory Committee on Undersea Features of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names and a long-standing member of the Subcommittee on Undersea Feature Names of the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans, both of which deal with seafloor toponyms.Cherkis has more than 45 years of experience in the field of marine geosciences. His specialty is seafloor mapping (bathymetry), and his work has included compilation of new, state-of-the-knowledge bathymetric charts in the regions of the East/Japan Sea, Arctic and sub-Arctic Oceans and seas, Persian Gulf, Eastern Mediterranean Sea, North and South Atlantic Oceans, Eastern and Central Pacific Ocean and the Southern Ocean. He was the principal investigator on 22 major marine geoscience programs and a participant on 16 other programs. For the past 11 years, he has operated his own business, Five Oceans Consultants, Ltd., providing consulting services and expertise to public-, private-, non-profit- and academic-sector organizations around the world.Background:Maritime toponyms refer to large and small bodies of water and to undersea features. Surface regions i.e., “seas” and “oceans,” have been delineated and boundaries have been published in the International Hydrographic Bureau publication, S-23, of which the last edition was published in 1953. Some of the names have been used for hundreds and sometimes thousands of years as in the case of the “East Sea.” The present-day international maritime community, including most governmental agencies however, has been using the term, “Sea of Japan,” exclusively for that body of water for most of the last 100 years or so. A new edition of publication S-23 has been planned for the past 20 years, but because of disagreements between certain members of the IHO, no final text has been distributed, and until the disagreeing parties resolve their differences, the publication of a revised S-23 is impossible. The reason for using the Sea of Japan term is mainly because Imperial Japan aggressively annexed Korea in the early 20th century, and for the next 40 years, Japan embarked on a campaign to systematically remove all vestiges of Korean heritage, including the Korean language.This practice continued until the end of the World War II in 1945. After cessation of hostilities, the Korean nation was reestablished in the company of nations of the world and the Korean language was likewise resurrected. Underscoring the importance of the sea’s name is the new South Korean national anthem which has, as its first two words, “Dong Hae …” which translates to “East Sea“ in English. The use of the toponym, “East Sea” or, in Korean, “Dong Hae” can be traced back at least two millennia. At that time, ancient China dominated the region and used the term East Sea to indicate that direction from their eastern coastline. The Chinese documents that eluded destruction during informational “purges” of several Chinese emperors over the past 2,000 years are now housed in great historical libraries mostly located in China and Korea. In South Korea, a reference to Dong Hae appears on a stele to King Gwanggaeto and dates to the year 414 of the Common Era.The name East Sea was established for at least 1,000 years before Japan was even known to exist to the Western World. The first Western reference to the East Sea is attributed to a world map created in the 13th century, outlining the travels of Giovanni di Plano Carpini in eastern and Central Asia between 1245- 1247, C.E. That map is unfortunately lost, but a copy from ca.1434 is known to exist, and it presently resides at Yale University.

Moving toward the 21st century we must pause, because in March 1969, the National Geographic Society -- an international geography and map publisher of great regard throughout the world -- published a map of Korea on page 308 of an article that shows the name, East Sea used as an alternate name for the Sea of Japan.

Presently, all major producers of family, school and scholarly atlases, e.g., the Times Atlas, Rand-McNally World Atlas, Langenscheidt Publishers Atlas, Collins World Atlas, National Geographic World Atlas, et al., all give equal importance to the body of water called the East Sea and/or the Sea of Japan.

East Sea/Sea of Japan toponyms

East Sea/Sea of Japan toponyms discussed here deal mainly with features completely outside of the territorial limits of the nations that border the region, i.e., beyond 12 nautical miles from the shores of Korea, Japan and Russia.Early 20th century maps note the existence of the Korea/Tsushima Strait, that body of water that separates Korea and Japan and though which a branch of the oceanographically important Kuroshio Current flows northward. The Strait contains a historically Japanese island, Tsushima, hence it was given the name, Tsushima Strait a bit over 100 years ago, during the beginning of the colonial annexation period. However, a significant number of Western publications, dating from the middle 1850s, show it as Korea Strait, or the equivalent in other Indo European tongues, e.g., as ”detroit de Coreé“ in French. Some of these maps also refer to the East Sea as “La Mer du Coreé,” or “Sea of Korea.” No organization dedicated standardization of maritime geographic terminology body, e.g., the IHB, existed at the time.Tsushima Basin is a name applied to a more-or less-circular depression in the southwestern-most East Sea/Sea of Japan. According to IHO/IOC publication B-6 guidelines, “The first choice of a specific term, where feasible, should be one associated with a geographical feature: e.g., Aleutian Ridge, Aleutian Trench …” The nearest geographical feature to this depression is Ulleung-do (Ulleung Island), and therefore, according to the IHO/IOC principles for naming undersea features, should be called Ulleung Basin because the basin is immediately adjacent to Ulleung-do. However, since the name Tsushima Basin has been previously used in the scientific and geographic literature, and almost exclusively between 1910 and 1970 due to political events that will not again revisited. Tsushima Basin should be retained as a variant name within gazetteers, or used concurrently with Ulleung Basin, as can be seen in the appended reference list.During the 20th meeting of the GEBCO Sub-Committee on Undersea Feature Names (GEBCO-SCUFN) in Monaco in June of 2007, the recently-formed Korean Committee on Undersea Feature Names (K-CUF) submitted ten names for approval by the Sub-Committee. Those names are Anyongbok Seamount, Gangwon Plateau, Hupo Bank, Igyuwon Seamount, Kimmu Seamount, Onnuri Basin, Saenal Basin, Ulleung Plateau, Usan Escarpment and Usan Trough. Most of these features were recently discovered in the East Sea/Sea of Japan by Korean research ships. (fig. 3). All of these features were approved by unanimous vote of the GEBCO Sub-Committee and were placed in the GEBCO Gazetteer of Undersea Feature Names (IHO-IOC Publication, B-8).
Locations of undersea toponyms. (After: Ocean Atlas of Korea East Sea;

NORI, Republic of Korea, 2007)At the 21st meeting of GEBCO-SCUFN in mid-May, 2008, at which time the Korean Committee on Undersea Feature Names (K-CUFN) proposed eight new undersea feature names, four of which are in the East Sea: Jugam Ridge, Ulsan Seachannel, Usan Ridge and Wangdol Reef. All of the names were approved by the GEBCO-SCUFN committee and added to the GEBCO gazetteer.Statistics:In 2006, an extensive literature search of non-Korean-language publications was initiated to locate print media articles that support the Korean position that alternate names and dual usage of the term, “East Sea” can be and have been used within the science community. At the time of this writing, 694 papers have been located in published literature and governmental sources which contain East Sea/Sea of Japan toponyms. For relevance in this paper only, the subaerial toponyms have been limited to the following: East Sea/Sea of Japan.Of the 694 papers, 519 contain the toponym, East Sea, in either the title or in the text. Further, of the entire list of 580 references, 309 contain the names of non-Korean authors, many of whom are from Japan.