National Geographic Uses “East Sea”

National Geographic, a U.S. monthly magazine that deals with nature and environment, has written ‘East Sea(Sea of Japan)’ to refer to the body of water between the Korean Peninsula and Japan in the July’s edition.

The July’s edition features a cover story on the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) of the Korean Peninsula to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the Korean War and gave a map of the Korean Peninsula of a size of 50 cm by 80cm published as a supplement.

Considering the influence of the magazine, which prints more than 6.8 million English copies worldwide and another 2.1 million copies in other languages, the fact that they used East Sea first to designate the body of water could be a useful instrument in our campaign to correct the terminology, a South Korean diplomat to the U.S. said.

South Korean diplomats to the U.S. have been working to explain justification for East Sea to be recognized. They have supported reporters of the magazine when visiting South Korea in both last September and November and kept in contact with the magazine and sending materials in a number of times.

The cover story, under the title of Korea＇s dangerous divide, introduces, with variety of color pictures, about U.S. soldiers serving at the DMZ, Panmunjeom, Korea-U.S. joint military exercises, Life of residents in the DMZ, and nature and ecosystem of the DMZ.

In addition, Essays of traveling Mt. Keumgang by journalist Tom O`Neill and photographer Michael Yamashita were also featured.

maypole@donga.com