Google Maps has changed the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America following Donald Trump’s executive order mandating the change amid his trade war with Canada.
On Saturday, two days after the president cited Executive Order 14172 (Restoring Names That Honor
American Greatness) to authorize the Great Lake’s renaming, Google Maps was updated to reflect the change for U.S. users.
Google’s sudden name change — the executive order stated the change must occur within 30 days, not 48 hours — was met with anger by Canadians, Lake Ontario-defending Americans, and HOMES mnemonic rememberers, all of whom accused the company of too quickly complying with Trump’s Lake America demand spurred by a trade war over tariffs.
However, in a statement, Google explained that the change was augmented by the government body that oversees the naming of places.
“The U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) has formally changed the name for ‘Lake Ontario’ to ‘Lake America’ in the United States,” Google said. “Since we update Google Maps to reflect name changes in official government sources, which is GNIS for the U.S., people using Maps in the U.S. will see ‘Lake America,’ those in Canada will continue to see ‘Lake Ontario,’ and those outside of the U.S. and Canada will see both names.”
Soon after Trump’s executive order, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum signed an order demanding that the name change occur “effective immediately.”
“These updates follow our long-standing policy for bodies of water with names that vary from country to country, and are starting to roll out now,” Google added.
As the company noted, only Google Maps users in the U.S. will see Lake America, while Canadians will continue to see Lake Ontario. Around the world, the body of water will be shown primarily as Lake Ontario with the parenthetical (Lake America).
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said of the Lake America executive order on Saturday, “I just don’t see the purpose. It’s absolutely backwards. It was like something out of Saturday Night Live when [Trump] signed a document saying ‘change to Lake America.’ No one’s going to call it Lake America. It’s been Lake Ontario for hundreds of years. It’s going to continue to be Lake Ontario.”
This is the second major body of water to get a government-mandated name change under the Trump administration, following the Gulf of Mexico’s rebranding to the Gulf of America, which Google Maps similarly acquiesced to.
At press time, Apple Maps still refers to it as Lake Ontario on their app in the U.S.:
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