Disputed names
Can historical maps be of help in finding the right name, or do they make it even more confusing?
Historical maps can show how a place was called at different times, by different peoples, empires, languages, or mapmakers. That is useful for understanding history, identity, and continuity. But it can also make things more confusing, because one region may have several legitimate name traditions: a local endonym, a foreign exonym, a colonial name, a religious name, a trade-route name, and a modern official name.Â
A map reflects choices: which language to use, which border to draw as solid or dotted, which community to omit, what scale to use, and what political authority the publisher recognized. Legal scholarship on map evidence stresses that maps are not purely objective documents; they are constructed representations made for particular purposes.
What are samples of disputed names on old maps?
Persian Gulf naming dispute
The sea bordering Iran (Persia), Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman, with an area of 240,000 km, is in Western countries normally referred to as the Persian Gulf.
The Persian Gulf naming dispute concerns the name of the body of water known as the Persian Gulf after Persia (the Western exonym for Iran). This name has been contested by some Arab countries since the 1960s, amid the emergence of pan-Arabism and Arab nationalism, leading to the use of "Arabian Gulf" (Arabic: الخليج العربي) as well as "Gulf".
The East Sea (Sea of Japan) versus the Sea of Korea.
In most international world maps and atlases today, the Sea between Japan and Korea is labeled the "Sea of Japan."
It is interesting to review the historical background of the dual use of "Sea of Japan" and "East Sea" by neighboring countries and other Western countries.
The Scarborough Shoal region close to the Philippines
Annotated as "PARIS TREATY LINE", it concurs with the line established in the Treaty of Paris, which is the western boundary of the Philippines according to the treaty. Scarborough Shoal (now Huangyan Dao) lies beyond the line, indicating that the initial naming of Huangyan Dao by the British in the 18th century was restored and the Spanish name of the 19th century was abolished.
