The UN General Assembly voted on Friday to adopt a new map that enlarges the African continent while reducing North America and Europe, drawing condemnation from the United States.
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Japan was among the 164 UN members supporting the resolution, but now faces issues as the Kuril Islands, called the Northern Territories in Japan, are shown in the same color as Russia on the map.
Japan’s chief government spokesman Minoru Kihara stated that the new map, known as the “Equal Earth” cartographic projection, “contains an image that contradicts the position of the Japanese government.”
“We have lodged a protest through diplomatic channels to the map website operator and demanded correction of this depiction,” Kihara told reporters.
He declined to specify when the government became aware of the issue but said Japan “needs to prevent the spread of misinformation about our territories and geographic names.”
The disputed islands were seized by the former Soviet Union in 1945, which later expelled the local Japanese residents.
Relations between Japan and Russia sharply deteriorated last month when President Vladimir Putin unexpectedly visited the disputed islands for the first time.
Japan urgently summoned the Moscow ambassador, and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Putin’s visit “offends the feelings of the Japanese people” and called it “completely unacceptable.”
She stated that the islands are “an integral part of Japanese territory both historically and under international law.”
Moscow quickly responded by categorically rejecting such statements, calling them “politically inappropriate, offensive, and, of course, legally unfounded.”
The UN says the new map aims to provide a “more accurate representation of continental land areas” than traditional Mercator projections.
Additionally, the new map has been criticized for depicting the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula separately from Ukraine.
Ukraine was one of seven countries that did not vote in favor of the new UN world map due to how Crimea is represented.
Ukraine abstained from the vote, along with Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, and Serbia.
On the map, Crimea is shown in gray, differing from the green shade used for the rest of the country.
Russia illegally occupied and annexed Crimea in 2014, but under international law, it remains Ukrainian territory.
Although Crimea’s color on the map is not the same as Russia’s, it still shows the peninsula as somewhat separated from Ukraine.
In an official protest registered with the UN, Ukraine called the country’s depiction on the new map completely unacceptable.
