a. Examination of Individual Map-making Countries

The British National Library collection includes maps published in Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Germany, Russia, Japan, China and Korea.

The following is an analysis of individual map-making countries:

Map-making Country	Amount
Britain	48
France	13
Netherlands	12
Germany	5
Japan	5
Ireland	2
Italy	1
Belgium	1
Russia	1
China	1
Korea	1
Total	90

During the age of imperialism, nations used to encourage map-making for purposes of exploring overseas colonies and increasing economic gains from trade. However, few maps tailored to these needs were created on the basis of professional expertise. In fact, individual cartographers used to publish maps in their own names. Most cartographers stated in their production notes that they relied on other maps for reference.

A lot of British maps that came out following D'anville's famous Nouvel Atlas de la Chine were widely known to have relied on the Nouvel Atlas for the geographical designations involving Korea, China and Japan. They did not, however, copy verbatim the geographical names from the D'anville's map. For example, a lot of maps published in Europe after the late 18th century used the D'anville's map as a benchmark to refer to geographical designations in Northeast Asia. While D'anville's map did not have any reference to Korea's Yellow (West) Sea and the East Sea, the maps that claimed to be relying on D'anville's map labeled these seas as such. It is important to understand the reasons why this happened.

Cartographers often published maps in languages other than their native tongues. For example, Ortelius, a native of Antwerp, Belgium, was one of the leading map-makers of the 16th Century Europe. His real name was Abraham Ortel. His name was later changed to its Latin equivalent as most of his maps were published in Latin.

Teisera, a missionary, drew up some of the first maps of China, Korea and Japan after returning from travels to China. In cooperation with Ortelius, he published maps written in Latin in Belgium. The popularity of the original Latin-language maps led to publication of translations in different languages such as German, French, Dutch and English. In general, the maps published in Flemish or Dutch were published in other European languages because of their limited marketability in other countries. In Nuremberg, Germany, maps were mostly published in French. These facts have been confirmed through the maps preserved at the British National Library.


b. Investigations by Periods and Designations

The following are the different names in different period for the East Sea:

Classification	Total	Sea of Korea	East Sea	Dual use of "Sea of Korea" and "East Sea"	Sea of Japan	Sea of China	No reference
Total	90	62	8	2	10	4	4
16th	1	-	-	-	-	1	-
17th	1	-	1	-	-	-	-
18th	81	62	7	2	6	3	1
19th	7	-	-	-	4	-	3

In the survey, our examinations were limited to the maps published between the 16th and the early 19th centuries. In particular, maps of the 18th century have received special attention. Old maps created until the 18th century referred to the sea as Sea of Korea or East Sea. Detailed results of examination on this point will be given in later chapters.

The survey found that four maps make no reference to the sea. One is the map published by Hiyashi Kohei in Tokyo in 1785 and the remaining three maps were created during the 19th century. Among the three, one was Daedongyeojido by Kim Jeong-ho in Korea and two were English maps published by Japanese map-makers in Tokyo. It is widely known that some of the maps in the mid-19th century were drawn up in Japan for the purpose of introducing Japan abroad and referred to the sea area as Sea of Japan. On the contrary, examination of the maps in the British National Library found that only one map published by Mori Kin Seki in Osaka in 1876 referred to the East Sea as Sea of Japan, while three other maps contained no reference.

Among the maps that refer to the sea as the Sea of China, the map on Japan created by Ortelius and Teisera in 1595 shows Korea as an elongated island and calls the sea in question as the Sea of China. The map appears to have been influenced by the old practice of calling the entire sea area in the vicinity of China as the China Sea. Such practice continued up until the early 18th century, but the term Sea of China disappeared completely thereafter.

Examination of the different names for the body of water in question reveals that there are only four old maps referring to the sea as Sea of China. But, these maps are of little significance for our discussion since the usage resulted from a lack of geographical information about Northeast Asia. Ten maps out of the total 90 called the sea area Sea of Japan. One of these 10 was published by a Japanese map-maker in English in 1876. Some Japanese maps with English descriptions made no reference to the sea west of the archipelago because the Japanese traditionally called the sea lying in the direction of the Pacific Ocean as Sea of Japan.

The overwhelming majority of appellations of the sea in maps produced in the 18th and 19th centuries contained references to Korea. The 1997 investigation on the 61 antique maps in the University of Cambridge showed the following results:

1) Designations with reference to China: 11 out of 61 cases

2) Designations with reference to Japan: 6/61

3) Designations containing both Korea and Japan: 3/61

4) Designations with reference to Korea: 34/61

5) Others: 5/61 (Among them, one refers it as Sea of Kamchatka, while another calls it Western Sea.)

The world maps published in the period designating the sea area between Korea and Japan mostly refer to Korea, rather than China or Japan. We can further observe the process of change in references to the sea.

The maps published in the 16th Century rarely made any specific reference to the sea and simply included it as part of Sea of China. Later on, it is changed to Oriental Sea or Mer Orientale. Subsequently, Oriental Sea was described as Sea of Korea or East Sea. In the late 19th Century, Sea of Korea and Sea of Japan were used together for a while. Then, gradually Sea of Japan replaced other names.

First, we can assume that the 16th century maps did not make references to the sea because of a lack of information. The designation Sea of China was simply due to the fact that the sea was in China's vicinity.

The shift from Sea of China to Oriental Sea occurred, it appears, based on the reasoning that the direction was more important at the time than the region itself when naming geographical features. A question arises here as to why the name Oriental Sea is used in reference to the sea east of Korea.

In Latin language, Oriens means east, derived from the word "Oriri," meaning to rise or get up. Therefore, Orient refers to the place where the sun rises just as the Chinese character . But, we must not conclude that Oriental Sea refers to Korea's East Sea. Rather, the term Oriental in the old maps published in the 18th century seems to indicate the sea east of the continent in a broad sense.

But, among the maps used in the 18th Century, the La Partie Orientale de L'Asie published by De Fer (1646-1720) in 1703 deserves special attention. As a geographer, De Fer has a lot of maps to his credit. He produced most of his maps based on materials that were sent back by missionaries dispatched to China in the 17th Century. De Fer's La Partie Orientale de L'Asie has an accuracy problem in geographical configuration since it was made before the introduction to the West of Huangyu Quanlantu (the so-called Jesuit Atlas), which was created at the instruction of Emperor Kangxi of Qing Dynasty. But De Fer's map's primary importance is that it demonstrates a lot of geographical knowledge. For example, it revealed that the proper name of the country that was known as Japon in French or Japan in English was Niphon.

In the map, he described that the sea was unknown to Westerners but that Tartares, namely the people living in Manchuria, called it Mer Orientale. When all things are taken into account, he must have been well informed about China, Korea and Japan through documents, including journals and letters that missionaries had sent home. De Fer's maps are significant to us because of the information that his maps alone provide about the geographical designations at that time. Thus, we are inclined to believe that Orient in De Fer's map indicates his recognition of Korea's (East Sea) designation rather than referring to the general area. Other 18th Century maps calling the sea as Oriental Sea or Mer Orientale must have been influenced by De Fer's maps.

The next question would be: In spite of De Fer's designation, why was the sea's name changed to Sea of Korea from Oriental Sea? We recall that Europeans traditionally referred to Orient a vast region to the east of Turkey, including Asia Minor, China, Korea and Japan. As the 18th Century set in, they started to subdivide the Orient into Near East, Middle East and Far East. In the process, they must have searched for better names than the vague Mer Orientale or Oriental Sea. They eventually opted for Sea of Korea.

As the directional names became universal, east (or est in French) instead of Orient came to be used. Maps created by John Senex chronicle the process of the sea name's transition from Orient to east, and then to Corea.

In view of various evidence, it is believed the three terms, Orient, East and Korea are inter-related. Here we should first study the reason why the sea was not named after Japan.

Along with China, Japan was introduced to the West early and Japan was the country that Western missionaries usually chose to travel to after China. Therefore, the Italian missionary Matteo Ricci referred to the sea in question as Sea of Japan in his Map of All Nations on Earth. He published the map in 1602 after traveling to Beijing. His map had little influence on the maps that came out during the 17th and 18th Centuries because the term he used contradicted the rationalist perceptions of Westerners.

Why, then, was the term Sea of Japan prominent in the 19th Century? One of the reasons was that beginning from the end of the 18th Century Japan widely distributed English translations of maps of Northeast Asia in Europe for purposes of raising awareness of their country. It should be noted that Japanese map-makers referred to the sea to the west as Sea of Japan, even though there had been scant reference to the sea as such until the early 19th Century.

Another important event related to the increased usage of Sea of Japan in the 19th Century was the experience of La Perouse, a distinguished explorer and naval officer. The French Court dispatched La Perouse to explore the sea in Asia, particularly the seas around the Korean Peninsula which were virtually unknown to the outside world. Upon arriving in southern Jeju Island in 1787, La Perouse explored the entire area of Korea's south coast. He then traveled up the east coast, correcting errors in the descriptions of Korea's shorelines in the Western maps at the time. For some reason he had to give up his investigations, and headed for Japan past the Ullung Island in Korea's East Sea. Eventually, he referred to the sea as Sea of Japan in his final report and this appears to be largely responsible for the subsequent change of the sea's name from Sea of Korea to Sea of Japan.

The La Perouse expedition consisted of two ships, the Boussole and the Astrolab, and a number of experts were aboard the two vessels. Why, then, did he refer to the sea as Sea of Japan, even though most of the maps published in the 18th Century called it Sea of Korea? It appears that he was influenced by the term Sea of Japan used in Matteo Ricci's Map of All Nations on Earth as it was a map published by a Westerner in the Orient.

However, a closer look at Matteo Ricci's map reveals a few problems. First, on the map the name Sea of Japan is marked closer to Japan, not in the middle of the sea. Second, to the east of the Korean Peninsula there is a brief passage introducing a kingdom called Joseon, or Korea, which was unknown to the West at the time. The map did not have enough space to contain the country name and the words Sea of Korea next to the coastline. Such possibilities existed in all Northeast Asian maps that were published in Portugal in the late 16th century and other European maps. It appears that La Perouse was simply not careful and thorough in naming the sea in his report.

Through the examination of old maps preserved at the British National Library, the following facts are confirmed:

First, the old maps published in the 18th century were created with objectivity, devoid of imaginary elements of the past. These maps were based on local information gained from expeditions and scientific knowledge of that time.

Second, the maps of the 18th century accepted such terms as Sea of Korea and East Sea, after using the Oriental Sea term, as a result of the rational naming conventions of the West.

Third, examinations of the old maps at the University of Cambridge proved the dominance of the Sea of Korea and East Sea designations. The maps at the British National Library reflect a universal trend at the time of their production.

Fourth, the change of the name to Sea of Japan in the 19th Century appears to have been triggered by Japan's intensive publication of English translations of its world maps. French explorer La Perouse's error in naming the sea appears the result of his superficial reading of Matteo Ricci's map and documentary records.

The 18th Century usage of Sea of Korea or East Sea in European maps alone may not be enough to justify restoration of the original name. But, the terms Sea of Korea and East Sea have a universal validity on their own. The only reasonable way for the time being is dual usage of East Sea and Sea of Japan. Both the IHO and the U.N. Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names also recommend this solution.