Why some Canadian website maps show ‘Lake America’ instead of Lake Ontario

Several Ontario government websites briefly displayed a name change for Lake Ontario to "Lake America" after Google Maps updated its information. According to the Toronto Sun, Hydro One stated that the issue originated from a third-party mapping service. The name change was reportedly made in response to a US executive order, but it did not affect Canadian naming conventions.

The Winnipeg Free Press reported that online posts falsely claimed Canada was blocking vessels from entering Lake Ontario through a canal on the St. Lawrence Seaway unless they referred to the lake as Lake Ontario. However, there is no evidence to support this claim, and the corporation managing the seaway on the Canadian side said marine traffic was unaffected.

The name change was only visible to US users of Google Maps, with people in Canada and elsewhere seeing the lake's name as Lake Ontario. According to the National Post, four Ontario government websites showed the incorrect name before correcting it, with no two websites fixing it in the same way.

Brief written by urgent.news from National Post, Winnipeg Free Press, Futurism, Toronto Sun, The Korea Times — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.