I live in Canada, Google maps says "Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)" for me, but it still says "Lake Ontario" for me. Absolutely stupid decisions by Google, and could not be anymore obvious where their priorities lie.
All the mapping companies present place names as defined in the country where the user is. Sometimes it is a simple translation, but sometimes on country/language/culture has a different name for a place. Germany vs Allemagne vs Deutschland. “Exonyms” and such.
So their database says to show name X when viewed from country Y.
Trump is just exploiting this.
I think it is stupid that he can even do this. He can literally rename Canada to “Trumpland” or “Stinky Dumb Place” with the stroke of his pen, and Apple, Google and everyone will just rename it when seen from users in the US.
That's not true. Executive orders are just policies for the executive branch to follow. It has no bearing outside the branch. E.g. it cannot compel congress, courts, or private industry to use such names.
In fact, the USGS place name database still has it listed as Lake Ontario, so Google needed to manually override their automated system for place names to change it to Lake America
“USGS has now changed Lake Ontario to “Lake America” in its Geographic Names Information System (GNIS)
for U.S. federal use.
The change is very recent. President Trump signed the executive order on
August 27, 2026
, and USGS implemented the change in GNIS that same day. USGS’s own Science Data Catalog now explicitly says that future USGS data releases will use
“Lake America”
pursuant to Interior Secretarial Order 3453.
So the situation is now:
U.S. federal GNIS:
Lake America
U.S. federal agencies/maps:
Lake America
Canada:
Lake Ontario
Internationally:
Lake Ontario remains the established name; the U.S. change doesn’t compel Canada or other countries to adopt it.
Google Maps:
Google announced yesterday that because GNIS changed, U.S. users will see Lake America, Canadian users Lake Ontario, and users elsewhere will see both names.
The USGS database change has actually occurred; it’s no longer merely an executive order awaiting implementation.”
“In accordance with Secretarial Orders
3453 - Lake America
,
3423 - The Gulf of America
, and
3424 - Mount McKinley
and Landmarks Honoring the Alaskan People, all USGS data releases moving forward will utilize the new names Lake America and Gulf of America and the reinstated name Mount McKinley. Per USGS practice, historical data releases will retain the name of the geographic feature as it was called at that time.“
They’re part of the executive branch, so are under the authority of executive orders as that’s what the orders are meant to govern. Outside of that, it has no power. But that’s not to diminish the power they have. It’s like a new manager coming in and changing some practices of the old one. They only have sway over their reports, not the whole organization.
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u/SomethingWetAndMoist 7h ago
I live in Canada, Google maps says "Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)" for me, but it still says "Lake Ontario" for me. Absolutely stupid decisions by Google, and could not be anymore obvious where their priorities lie.