Google Maps Now Shows ‘Lake America’ Instead of Lake Ontario
Wired
•Sun, 30 Aug 2026 16:16:24 +0000
📰 What Happened
Google changed the name of Lake Ontario to 'Lake America' on US Google Maps late Saturday, days after President Donald Trump ordered the rebranding in official government databases as part of an ongoing tariff feud with Canada, whose capital province is called Ontario. Google said US users will see 'Lake America', users in Canada will continue to see 'Lake Ontario', and users outside both countries will see both names, while Apple Maps, Bing Maps and the government's GNIS database have not yet reflected the change.
🔍 The Backstory
The order follows Trump's January 2025 executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, which major map providers adopted after the US Department of the Interior updated its records. Open-source mapping community OpenStreetMap recognises both names and lets organisations choose which to show, while MapQuest has publicly said 'we're not changing it'.
🎯 Why It Matters
The episode shows how political disputes are now flowing directly into the digital maps billions of people use every day, forcing mapmakers to effectively take sides. It also raises questions about how much influence governments should have over privately operated geographic data.
Google changed the name of Lake Ontario to 'Lake America' on US Google Maps late Saturday, days after President Donald Trump ordered the rebranding in official government databases as part of an ongoing tariff feud with Canada, whose capital province is called Ontario. Google said US users will see 'Lake America', users in Canada will continue to see 'Lake Ontario', and users outside both countries will see both names, while Apple Maps, Bing Maps and the government's GNIS database have not yet reflected the change.
The order follows Trump's January 2025 executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, which major map providers adopted after the US Department of the Interior updated its records. Open-source mapping community OpenStreetMap recognises both names and lets organisations choose which to show, while MapQuest has publicly said 'we're not changing it'.
The episode shows how political disputes are now flowing directly into the digital maps billions of people use every day, forcing mapmakers to effectively take sides. It also raises questions about how much influence governments should have over privately operated geographic data.