Japan protests UN world map that shows disputed Kuril Islands as Russian

Japan is demanding that the new map, which the UN General Assembly adopted on Friday, be corrected.

We have filed a protest, says government spokesman Minoru Kihara.

The Kuril Islands have been disputed for well over a century. In 1945, the Soviet Union occupied the archipelago and expelled the Japanese population, and all the islands are now under Russian jurisdiction. Japan claims several of the islands as its territory, and relations between Tokyo and Moscow soured significantly when Vladimir Putin recently made a surprise visit to the island of Iturup.

Japan was among the 164 UN members that voted in favor of the new map, which depicts Africa, Latin America, South Asia and Oceania in a larger, more accurate format than on traditional maps.