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Survey on the place names of East Sea in the western old maps preserved at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France

  • Journal of the Korean Cartographic Association
  • Abbr : JKCA
  • 2010, 10(2), pp.13-27
  • Publisher : The Korean Cartographic Association
  • Research Area : Social Science > Geography > Geography in general > Cartography

JUNG,IN-CHUL 1

1부산대학교

Candidate

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to survey the old western maps in possession of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France made a list of these maps which depict the East Sea. We consulted world maps and Asia maps and regional maps on China, Japan and Korea published before 1850. Many maps were copies of the previous edition and many maps copied some authentic cartographers’ maps. We excluded some maps made by second rate imitators and maps for children. Finally, we considered 204 maps for the name of East Sea. Firstly, ‘Mer Orientale’ or ‘Mer de la Chine’ were given to the sea around this area in the 16th and 17th centuries. But in the late 17th century, Jean Niehoff depict this body of water as ‘Mare Coreum(Korean sea)’. In the 18th century map making was directed by French cartographers. The concept of Oriental Sea began to change in this century. It became to indicate Sea of Korea or East Sea.. The Delisle family was a dominant cartography connection. This connection depict East Sea as ‘Mer de Corée’ for about 100 year. More than 58% of the maps depicted East Sea as ‘Mer de Corée’. Some German cartographers such as Hass and Seutter depict this sea as ‘Mer Orientale Minvs’ which means ‘Minor Oriental Sea’. But after La Perouse’s exploration of pacific area, the name of Sea of Japan become major name of this sea. More than 90% of the maps used ‘Sea of Japan’ instead of ‘Sea of Korea’. The library has more than 80,000 maps and 10,000 atlases, so it was not possible to consult all the maps and atlases. Maps produced in later time outnumber naturally. We found that quantitative approach which counts the frequency of the ‘sea name’ in the maps is not scientific. Qualitative approach which considers importance of the maps is needed to enable further steps to a correct naming of the sea. So we should consider the importance of the map and its cartographer.

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