An 18th century English map was discovered which marks the East Sea (Sea of Japan) as the "Eastern Sea." This map suggests that Westerners back in the 13th century during Marco Polo¡¯s times addressed today¡¯s East Sea as the Eastern Sea. Lee Sang-tae, research office chief of the National Institute of Korean History, released the map Wednesday, which a South Korean map collector recently obtained from France.
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This British map, which marks the East Sea as the Eastern Sea, was manufactured in the 18th century to explain Marco Polo¡¯s visit to China in the 13th century.
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This map, called ¡°A Map of Marco Polo¡¯s Voyages & Travels in the 13th Century,¡± is 30cm wide and 19cm long. Experts assumed that the map was made by an English map maker named Harris in 1744. The map includes countries of Eurasia and Africa such as Italy, Arabia, India, China, Borneo, Korea and Japan, and marks the Korean Peninsula as the ¡°Kingdom of Corea¡± and the sea in between the peninsula and Japan as the ¡°Eastern Sea.¡±
Lee said that looking at the fact that the map's design is based on the travels of Marco Polo, the map maker presumably got the name the ¡°Eastern Sea¡± from Marco Polo¡¯s unknown records.
(Yu Seok-jae, karma@chosun.com )
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