October 25th is celebrated as “Dokdo Day” in Korea. Dokdo Day was established on October 25th to commemorate Emperor Gojong’s designation of Dokdo as an annexed island of Ulleungdo in Imperial Decree No.41 and South Korea has celebrated “Dokdo day” every year on the same day since 2010.

On Dokdo Day, Professor Seo Kyung-duk of Sungshin Women’s University said that he sent a letter of protest to Apple CEO Tim Cook, demanding that Dokdo should be properly marked on iPhone maps.

According to Professor Seo, he asked his overseas followers on social media to check the notation of Dokdo on Apple iPhone maps in their countries. As a result of the survey, it was found that Dokdo was not marked on iPhone maps of 22 countries around the world, including the United States, United Kingdom, the Philippines, and Egypt. Furthermore, in Japan, it was reported that Dokdo is marked as Takeshima on the iPhone maps.

In the letter of protest, he said, “In the East Sea between Korea and Japan, there are islands called Ulleungdo and Dokdo. If you search for it in Korea, it is correctly written as ‘Dokdo.’ But in Japan, it is marked as Takeshima(竹島) as they have claimed. In addition, there is no indication of Dokdo at all in iPhone maps of other countries except for the two countries.” He pointed out that this is an obvious error and misrepresentation because Dokdo is historically, geographically, and by international law, unique to the Republic of Korea.

In 2019, he also investigated the notation of Dokdo in Google Maps in the same way. He found that Dokdo was marked as “Liancourt Rocks” in Google Maps of 26 countries and only Korea marked it as Dokdo. In addition, in the same way as in the iPhone map, it was marked as Takeshima in Japan. Professor Seo said that he had found that Dokdo was marked as Liancourt Reef on Google Maps and protested to change it to Dokdo last August 25th, but it has not been corrected yet.

He said, it is a big problem that there’s no-marking or wrong marking of Dokdo in Google and Apple maps, which are used by billions of people a day. He also said that he is planning to send them another letter of protest asking to rectify the error.