Map apps handle Trump’s renaming of Lake Ontario to Lake America differently

Three map apps, three responses so far to President Trump’s order to rename Lake Ontario Lake America amid an escalating trade war with Canada.

Google changed the name of the lake in its Maps app two days after the August 27 executive order was signed, at least for users in the United States. MapQuest has publicly refused to make the update, while Apple has yet to reflect on the change or say what it will eventually do.

And the decisions of tech companies seem to matter to Mr. Trump. He reached out to Apple to make the change, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

“I know the president has reached out to Apple directly,” Burgum told Tech Word News on Monday.

Mr. Burgum also said that when a place name change is ordered, Board of Geographic Names staff “plug it into the software and then that software cascades down so all the map providers do it.”

Prime Minister Mark J. Carney of Canada notes that the name Lake Ontario is 400 years old he said on social media“To name reality is to call it Lake Ontario – then, now and always.”

As of Tuesday morning, Apple Maps still showed an unchanged Lake Ontario. It shows the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America: Mr. Trump ordered this change just after his inauguration in January 2025. Google and Apple made the change in their map apps within a month. MapQuest continues to show the Gulf of Mexico.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Google said in a statement: “We are updating Google Maps to reflect name changes in official government sources.” US users will see Lake America; users in Canada will continue to see Lake Ontario; and others will see both names, the company said.

The dispute gave an unexpected boost to MapQuest, a pioneering site from the 1990s that had largely fallen out of use during the rise of Google and Apple. He posted the four-word post on social media, “We’re not changing it,” along with a map labeled “Lake Ontario.”

MapQuest was downloaded 80,000 times on Apple iOS on Sunday, Forbes reportedciting Appfigures, a market research company. At the beginning of August, it was averaging around 500 downloads per day.

“One of the fundamental problems with mapping companies is that there is no single undisputed authority to obey,” said David R. Rain, Professor of Geography at George Washington University. Map companies must make their own decisions when there is a conflict.

Showing different names to different users depending on their location “may seem like an elegant technical solution,” he said. “But it raises a big huge cartographic question. Does the map tell us what the government calls the place, or what the people who live there call it?”

Derek H. Alderman, a geography professor at the University of Tennessee, noted an increase in downloads for MapQuest after opposing Lake America, and said many people want map companies to “take a moral stand” on the issue. They matter, he said, adding: “Maps and their names help define the world we live in and know.”

“While at first glance it appears that mapping technology companies are only about providing the latest and most accurate geographic information, they are in fact deeply involved in the politics of representing the Earth and shaping whose history and identity is visible and legitimate on maps. This is the real pressure and responsibility that mapping technology companies work under.”