2007 - "Takeshima in the Korean official map" by Funasugi Rikinobu (舩杉力修) - (1) 「八道総図」 in 『新増東国輿地勝覧』(1530)

Sadly, Japanese Government expends only about 10 million yen (90,000-100,000 U.S. dollar) a year though the South Korea government put a huge budget to the Takeshima/Dokdo issue every year. Although Japanese government should be the one who are responsible for the territorial issue essentially, in reality, Shimane Prefecture, which is only one local government with very few budgets is forced to tackle this problem almost alone in Japan. I believe it is more necessary to inform international society of the excellent academic works done by Japanese researchers on this issue in order to let good Korean citizens realize that their governments' and academics' illogical claims over Dokdo/Takeshima cannot be accepted by international society and it is the best way to solve this issue peacefully at the court of ICJ.

The Web Takeshima Research Center, which had succeeded the research activity from Takeshima Research Group of Shimane last year, has lots of interesting articles on their site, which Japanese researchers from many specialized field studied and intensively wrote from many perspective. Luckily, we had a permission to translate and post them on this site recently. Though it is impossible for us to translate all of their fantastic reports, we are honoured to be going to choose some of them and post one by one.

As for the starters, I picked the article 「朝鮮側作製の官製地図にみる竹島（Takeshima in the Korean official map）」 by associate professor Funasugi Rikinobu (舩杉力修) of Shimane University. In the final report by Takeshima Research Group submitted last year, 　he studied many Korean old maps. But in this article, he selected 5-6 official Choson maps or maps made by Korean officials as a counterargument against the false claim that Japanese official maps in Edo era and Meiji era didn't include Takeshima/Dokdo, leaving false impression as Korea had any maps which include Takeshima/Dokdo in their official maps, by Prof. Hosaka Yuuji of Korean 世宗大学.

1) 「八道総図」 in 『新増東国輿地勝覧』 - "Takeshima in the Korean official map" by Funasugi Rikinobu (舩杉力修)

The map is assumed to be published in 1530 in the appointment by the government map. Especially, it is often used in the research of South Korea. Two islands (from left to right : Usando and Ulleundo) are drawn, but Usando is drawn to the west and Ulleundo is drawn on the east side. South Korea insists that by this map, it is understood that a Choson dynasty recognized present Takeshima/Dokdo as their territory, since importantly it shows two islands in the Sea of Japan though from immaturity of map making technique, it wrongfully shows Usando which Korean insist as today's Takeshima/Dokdo to the west of Ulleundo. However, this analysis is not accurate.

This is not the map based on the actual measurement or survey, but it is merely the main name of a place or roads were recorded. If you look at the text in 『新増東国輿地勝覧』 itself, the description of Ulleundo is under the Uljin Prefecture, and it clearly says that "Usando, Ulleundo. It is called 武陵 and also called 羽陵. Two islands are in the due East of the Sea of Uljin 縣. ... When it is a fine day, the trees on the mountain and the roots of mountains and seashore can be seen."

According to the analysis by Prof. Shimojou in 2005, this sentence means that two islands should locate in the order of Usando first and Ulleundo next from Korean peninsula and those two islands should be seen from Uljin which locate at mainland of Choson, because there was a "rule" that becomes an edit policy in the compilation of topography document in Choson dynasty, and there also was a principle that describes the distance from the land, clearly in case of the description of islands. The island (Usando) seen from Uljin seems to indicate Ulleundo because there is actually no island between and Ulleundo. Therefore, it is understood that the description of this map was not the one based on an actual field investigation but the one based on the description in the topography documents.

Thus, from this map, it can be said that geographic recognition around Ulleundo by Choson dynasty was not accurate at that time. It is thought that this empty island policy by which Choson dynasty prohibited their people from entering and the residence to Ulleundo after 1417 is related. The investigation to the island was done by a Choson dynasty at intervals of several years. In Choson dynasty's authentic record (朝鮮王朝実録), we can find the descriptions of the islands such as 于山島、武陵島, which is thought to be present Ulleundo from the content of the description. Therefore, it can be said that this map doesn't show that it recognized that there were two island in the Sea of Japan, but only shows that their recognition of the Ulleundo itself were confused.

*Related articles
Lies, Half-truths, and Dokdo Video, Part 1 : Propaganda video, 朝鮮王朝実録, 八道総図 (1530)

「朝鮮側作製の官製地図にみる竹島（Takeshima in the Korean official map）」 by associate professor Funasugi Rikinobu (舩杉力修) of Shimane University.
Translated by Kaneganese.
Courtesy of Web Takeshima Research Center.