A major Brazilian daily has begun using a map which designates the sea between Korea and Japan as “Mar do Leste,” meaning the East Sea, followed by “Mar do Japao,” meaning the Sea of Japan, in parenthesis.

Korea wants the international community to designate the waters as the “East Sea,” while Japan vouches for “Sea of Japan.”

In Brazil, most schools and news media use maps which designate the sea as the “Sea of Japan (the East Sea).”

However, O Estado de S. Paulo, a daily newspaper published in the metropolitan region of Sao Paulo, used a map with the “East Sea (the Sea of Japan)” designation on March 9 in relation to an article on the Korean Peninsula.

It is the first time for a major daily of the South American country to use a map which denotes the sea with the Korean-preferred name first.

Past Brazilian atlases used the Sea of Japan designation without mentioning the East Sea, but after Korean missions in Brazil made efforts to list the East Sea on maps, two atlases used by a majority of schools ― Geoatlas and Novo Atlas ― began to designate the sea as the “Sea of Japan (the East Sea)” in 2008.

By Chun Sung-woo (swchun@heraldcorp.com)