‘East Sea’ is a name that has been used by Koreans for over 2,000 years, and this can be confirmed in various historical sources and old maps.

As Japan emerged as a powerhouse in Asia at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, when world maps that looked almost the same as today were produced in earnest, the'East Sea' waters began to be widely known as the'Sea of ​​Japan'. . In particular, when the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) published the first edition of “Limits of Oceans and Seas” in 1929, Korea was given an opportunity to assert the validity of the East Sea name to the international community under Japanese colonial rule. What it did not have was the reason for accelerating the international spread of the'Sea of ​​Japan' mark. This booklet “Boundary of Oceans and Seas” was a book that was recorded by determining geographical names at the level of international organizations, and became an important citation for the borders and names of the world's oceans. At the time of publication of the second edition of this book (1937), Korea is still It was under Japanese colonial rule, and at the time of publication of the third edition (1953), it was during the Korean War.

In rebuilding the country after the Korean War, we have been striving to properly reflect the'East Sea' mark. For example, at the time of the conclusion of the 「Korea-Japan Fisheries Agreement」 in 1965, the two countries could not agree on the name of the sea area, and eventually decided to use'East Sea' and'Sea of ​​Japan' separately in their own language version of the agreement. Various activities have been continuously promoted to recover the nomination. Thanks to these efforts, the government officially raised the East Sea marking issue at an international conference for the first time at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Geographical Names Standardization after Korea's accession to the United Nations in 1991.