[Historical Background] Historically, the sea area between the Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago known as the "Sea of Japan", had been referred to by various names. Before the 18th century, no single name had been consistently used to designate this body of water. Various names such as "East Sea," "Sea of Korea," "Sea of Japan" and "Oriental Sea" appeared on old maps and publications. It is from the early 18th century to the mid-19th century that "Sea of Korea" and "Sea of Japan"gained wide acceptance and became the names most frequently used by cartographers. It is worth noting that as late as 1870 even many Japanese maps referred to this body of water as the "Sea of Chosen(Choson)" which means literally "Sea of Korea," Choseon being the ancient name of Korea.

Dokdo [Geographical location] In fact, the island is proclaimed to be within the territory of the Korean government. As an administrative district, the actual address of Dokdo is 1-96 Dokdo-li, Ulleung-eup, Ulleung-gun, Gyeongsangbuk-do, South Korea. Its exact location is 131 degrees 52 minutes of east longitude, and 37 degrees 14 minutes of north latitude. Dokdo is consisted of two main islands, the East island and the West island, and 89 small attached islands. Its total size is 182,453㎡.

[Historical Background] Records show that since the Shilla Dynasty, which existed in Korea about 1500 years ago, Dokdo belonged to Korea. Other historical documents of Korea, such as 'Samguksagi' and 'Sejongjirisillok', support this fact as well. This shows that Dokdo has been an island of Korea since ancient times, and also has been acknowledged so to the Korean people.

• More information about Dokdo or East Sea

http://www.dokdo.go.kr/
http://www.dokdo.re.kr/
http://www.dokdomuseum.go.kr/
http://www.korea.net/news/issues/issueView.asp?issue_no=45

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/36052055/ns/world_news-asiapacific/ http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/asia/eastsea.htm http://korea.prkorea.com/upload/editor/NipmqcmdpLcKtCfILXeL.gif