Google's Calling Lake Ontario 'Lake America' Now

On Thursday, President Trump signed an executive order demanding that Lake Ontario be renamed to Lake America. The renaming took place next to a large poster board map of the Great Lakes, with a red arrow pointing to Lake Ontario and labeling it as Lake America. The sign read "Making the Great Lakes Even Greater." Lake Ontario is bordered by the Canadian province of Ontario to the north, west, and southwest, and New York State to the south and east.

It was unclear immediately after the order whether Google would comply with the name change. MapQuest, a navigation service that was still operational in 1996 but became obsolete as Google Maps gained popularity, gained notoriety after uploading a screenshot of Lake Ontario on X (formerly Twitter), stating, "We're not changing it."

MapQuest also launched a "Rename Lake Ontario" web toy. According to Google's announcement about the change, posted on Saturday, the company updates Google Maps to reflect name changes in official government sources, such as the U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS). As a result, users in the U.S. will see Lake America, while those in Canada will continue to see Lake Ontario, and those outside of the U.S. and Canada will see both names.

These updates were implemented following Google's consistent policy for bodies of water with names that vary from country to country and were rolled out recently. Apple Maps, however, still displays Lake Ontario as of Sunday morning. Following Trump's earlier renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, Google Maps changed it for the same reason to maintain consistency with GNIS.

Users became frustrated with Google Maps following the Gulf of Mexico name change, causing Google to shut down reviews for the location. President Trump has been deteriorating the historically friendly relations between the U.S. and Canada since his first term, and that relationship has devolved into a trade war. On a separate matter, New York Governor Kathy Hochul expressed her disgust at the renaming of Lake Ontario, saying, "I'm speechless.

It is so patently absurd." She criticized the president for focusing on renaming a lake named after Indigenous peoples when there are more pressing issues affecting American lives, such as the high cost of energy, prescription drugs, utility bills, and groceries. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also called Trump's insistence on renaming the lake "juvenile."