Google Maps Updates to Show ‘Lake America’ in Place of Lake Ontario

Lake Ontario no longer appears on Google Maps in the United States. Google has renamed the easternmost of the Great Lakes to “Lake America,” effective late Saturday, following President Donald Trump’s directive to rebrand the lake in official government databases.

Trump issued the executive order on Thursday as part of a broader dispute over tariffs with Canada, whose capital province bears the same name, Ontario. This action echoed a January 2025 directive that renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, targeting a U.S. trading partner to the south.

Google, Apple, Microsoft, and other map providers adopted the Gulf of America naming promptly after the U.S. Department of the Interior updated its records, which occurred a few weeks after Trump’s order. Consequently, when those records—used to determine names on road signs and in official documents—showed Lake America, Google’s digital maps swiftly reflected the change.

Apple Maps and Bing Maps have not yet updated to show Lake America, though they are expected to do so. Notably, the federal Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) database still displayed Lake Ontario as of Sunday morning, indicating that the maps are “in the process of being updated to reflect this name change.”

Although Google and other private map providers are not legally obligated to use official names, they typically align with government databases such as GNIS. The names displayed to users vary according to their geographic location.

Google stated that users in the United States will see “Lake America,” while users in Canada will continue to see “Lake Ontario,” and users elsewhere will see both names. “These updates follow our long‑standing policy for water bodies with differing names across countries and are beginning to roll out now,” the company said.

Trump’s attempts to redraw maps have sparked significant discussion within open‑source mapping communities, notably OpenStreetMap, whose technology underpins services like Uber and Lyft. OpenStreetMap acknowledges both the U.S. and international names and allows organizations using its maps to choose which name to display.

MapQuest has announced it will not make the change, stating in a social media post that “we’re not changing it.”

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