VANK reports major institutions use Sea of Japan name

The Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK) has reported that at least 10 major international institutions and databases exclusively use the name ‘Sea of Japan’ for the body of water between Korea and Japan, rather than the ‘East Sea’ name promoted by South Korea.

According to VANK, the list of organizations using the single designation includes the U.S. Department of State, NASA, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Britannica, and National Geographic. Specifically, the U.S. State Department’s travel advisory for Korea and NASA’s satellite imagery content were noted for using only ‘Sea of Japan’ in their text and maps.

VANK expressed concern that because these reputable institutions use official government domains, their terminology is likely to appear at the top of search engine results. The organization warned that as over 1.2 billion people globally utilize generative artificial intelligence, the use of these names by authoritative sources could lead to the indiscriminate spread of incorrect place names through AI training data.