Lake Ontario is not any extra on Google Maps within the US. Google modified the identify of easternmost of the Nice Lakes to “Lake America” late Saturday, days after President Donald Trump ordered its rebranding in official authorities databases.
Trump issued the manager order on Thursday as a part of an ongoing feud over tariffs with Canada, whose capital province is named Ontario. It adopted an identical order he issued in January 2025 to rename the Gulf of Mexico because the Gulf of America as a part of a struggle with the US buying and selling companion to the south.
Google, Apple, Microsoft, and different maps suppliers adopted the Gulf of America naming as quickly because the US Division of the Inside up to date its information, which got here a few weeks after Trump’s order. So it was no shock that when those records—that are used to find out names on roadway indicators and in authorities literature—mirrored Lake America, digital maps from Google additionally rapidly took on the brand new identify.
Apple Maps and Bing Maps haven’t but mirrored the change however are anticipated to. In actual fact, the map for the federal authorities’s Geographic Names Data System database, which informs these modifications, nonetheless confirmed Lake Ontario as of Sunday morning, with a be aware that the maps are “within the means of being up to date to mirror this identify change.”
Whereas Google and different non-public organizations that present maps are not bound by law to use official names, they typically comply with authorities databases like GNIS. The situation names a consumer sees depends upon their very own geography.
“Individuals utilizing Maps within the US will see ‘Lake America,’ these in Canada will proceed to see ‘Lake Ontario,’ and people outdoors of the US and Canada will see each names,” Google mentioned in an unsigned statement. “These updates comply with our long-standing coverage for our bodies of water with names that modify from nation to nation, and are beginning to roll out now.”
Trump’s efforts to rewrite maps have generated appreciable public debate in open-source mapping communities comparable to OpenStreetMap, whose expertise is utilized by corporations comparable to Uber and Lyft. In the end, OpenStreetMap acknowledges each the US and overseas names and provides organizations utilizing its maps the selection over which to point out.
One map supplier has mentioned it could decline to make the change is MapQuest, which mentioned in a social media publish in response to Trump’s order that “we’re not altering it.”
