Google has announced that it will changing the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America on maps for U.S. users once the change formally goes into effect.
According to The Washington Post, people living in Mexico will continue to see the “Gulf of Mexico” on their apps, while users outside of both the U.S. and Mexico will see both names.
In a post on X, Google said it has a practice of changing names when they have been officially changed through the government.
“We’ve received a few questions about naming within Google Maps. We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.”
The change comes in the wake of executive orders signed by President Donald Trump, which according to the WaPo, was changed by the Interior Department on Friday.
“We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America,” Trump said at a news conference before his inauguration, “… What a beautiful name, and it’s appropriate.”
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The Gulf of Mexico was named over 400 years ago by Spanish explorers, and spans approximately 218,000-square-miles. According to the WaPo, Google often changes names of regions to suit those living within their respective countries. For example, in South Korea, the body of water between the Koreas and Japan is seen on maps as the East Sea, while appears on maps in Japan as the Sea of Japan.
Furthermore, another change will be coming into effect for the tallest peak in the U.S. — Mount Denali in Alaska, will be getting its name changed back to Mount McKinley after it was changed by former President Barrack Obama in 2015.
“President McKinley was the president that was responsible for creating a vast sum of money in the United States that Teddy Roosevelt then spent,” Trump said in December when floating the name change, “They were both excellent presidents, but McKinley did that, and that’s one of the reasons that we’re going to bring back the name of Mount McKinley.”
