Escalating the trade dispute with Canada, US President Donald Trump last week announced that he was changing the name of the smallest of the five Great Lakes. As the trade talks between the US and Canada broke down, leading to a wave of tariffs and retaliatory tariffs, Trump signed an executive order to rename Lake Ontario to ‘Lake America’.
Those in the US will only see the new name, which is ‘Lake of America’, according to Google. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) has formally changed the name for “Lake Ontario” to “Lake America” in the United States. Since we update Google Maps to reflect name changes in official government sources, which is GNIS for the U.S., President Trump has reportedly “reached out to Apple directly” about changing Lake Ontario’s name to Lake America in Apple Maps. “The president reached out to Apple directly, so I’m sure that we may be seeing that change coming up soon to Lake America, according to US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. Burgum shared the same in an interview on Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria” programme.
After Trump’s announcement, Google began rolling out this change for US users. The company posted a brief update on its Google Maps blog, noting that it follows the US Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) for its maps. This primarily means that the company has to rename Lake Ontario in Google Maps. Google’s update on the name change also made it clear that the change will be only for Google Map users in the US. Meanwhile, Canadians will continue to see the ‘Lake Ontario’ label. In the rest of the world, Lake Ontario will take precedence, but Lake America will also be there in parentheses. “The U.S.