VANK has called for corrections to the labeling of the East Sea and Dokdo on Equal Earth maps, saying inaccurate geographic names could become more widely established as the maps gain international use following a recent U.N. recommendation.
VANK said Sept. 10, 2026, that maps in English, Chinese and Japanese published on the official Equal Earth website label the East Sea solely as the “Sea of Japan” and omit Dokdo entirely. By contrast, a Korean-language version produced by VANK itself and published on the official website in June labels the body of water as the “East Sea” and includes Dokdo by name.
The issue has drawn greater attention since the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 4 recommended that governments, educational institutions, international organizations and other institutions make greater use of equal-area map projections, including Equal Earth.
VANK stressed that the U.N. recommendation concerns the Equal Earth projection itself, not the specific geographic names displayed on individual maps. The organization warned, however, that if such maps are widely distributed through schools, government agencies, international organizations and digital platforms following the U.N. recommendation, the geographic information shown on them could be mistakenly viewed as authoritative.
Developed in 2018 to address the distortions of the widely used Mercator projection, Equal Earth is designed to represent the relative sizes of land areas more accurately while keeping shape distortion relatively low. It has drawn particular attention for providing a more accurate representation of Africa, whose actual land area is about 14 times that of Greenland but which can appear disproportionately small on conventional world maps.
In the English, Chinese and Japanese versions of the Equal Earth map, Ulleungdo is shown without a name, while Dokdo is omitted entirely. By contrast, the Korean version includes both the “East Sea” and Dokdo by name.
VANK has sent a formal letter of protest to the Equal Earth office, calling for the “Sea of Japan” designation to be corrected in the foreign-language versions and for the East Sea and Dokdo to be accurately reflected. It also plans to launch a global campaign aimed at raising awareness of the issue among young people in Korea and abroad as well as the wider international community.
VANK has also called on the Korean government to respond proactively before the maps become more widely distributed. It urged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other relevant agencies to review the labeling on the official Equal Earth maps and formally request corrections from the organizations responsible for producing and maintaining them.
The organization also called on the National Geographic Information Institute to produce a multilingual Equal Earth world map accurately reflecting the East Sea and Dokdo and distribute it to educational institutions and international organizations in Korea and abroad. VANK noted that the institute currently provides world maps based on various projections but does not offer an Equal Earth version.
“We have promoted Equal Earth maps as a way to correct distortions in the way the world’s geography is represented, but if the East Sea and Dokdo are not properly reflected in the process, it would create another form of distortion,” Park Gi-tae, head of VANK, said. “The inaccurate labeling should be corrected before these maps become more widely used around the world.”
Koo Seung-hyun, a VANK researcher, said the U.N. recommendation was directed at the map projection, not the use of the name “Sea of Japan.”
“The U.N. recommended the use of the Equal Earth projection, not the geographic name ‘Sea of Japan,’” Koo said. “Because of the symbolic weight of a world map recommended by the U.N., however, there is a risk that the geographic information shown on the map could also be mistakenly regarded as having international authority. It should therefore be corrected before the maps become more widely used.”