Recently I visited your website – https://www.seachest.co.uk/folio-53-western-southern-coasts-of-japan/2347-southern-japan-and-adjacent-seas/. And I was surprised to find your website labeled Korea's 'East Sea' as 'Sea of Japan' alone, which is incorrect. Japan has continuously tried to insist the ‘East Sea’ as 'Sea of Japan', so these errors may happen on many websites including yours. However the use of ‘East Sea’ is more than ‘Sea of Japan’ in many western old maps so both names should be used in maps and websites.   

'East Sea' is diamond shape of blue sea in the east of the Eurasian continent. ‘East Sea’ is surrounded by South Korea, North Korea, Russia and Japan. South Korea calls it as ’East Sea’ while Japan and the world's major maps call it as ‘Sea of Japan’.

This is the result of Korea's loss of sovereignty and Japan's international status in the early 20th century, when the world's geographical names were standardized. Although Korea has raised objections ever since its independence in 1945, the case remains an unsolved problem in the international community.

When you open any map, you can see that ‘East Sea’ is bordered by four countries, such as South Korea, North Korea and Russia, Japan. Geographically, economically, and politically, it is clearly where the sovereignty of many countries is. Nevertheless, it is not right to write the name of a particular country alone.

International organizations recommend unifying names if different names are used for areas shared by two or more countries, and if not, each name must be taken up before the relevant countries agree. Currently, Korea and Japan have different claims, so it is up to international standards to take the two nominations together until the agreement is reached.

So we should named both 'East Sea' and 'Sea of Japan' for this sea, and I would like to recommend you this fact. There are a few disputes around the world for the name of the territory and the sovereignty. In order to judge from an objective perspective, I think we should use several names together and then use one name when unifying them in this situation.

Therefore, I would like to advise you to think deeply about the above recommendations in order to view and judge history fairly and to enhance the objectivity of your web site.

Thank you very much.

Best regards.

Yudam Kim.