Google Maps has caved to President Donald Trump’s demands and will change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
The change will be visible in the U.S. once it is officially updated in the U.S. Geographic Names System, Google said in an X post on Monday.
But the name will still remain Gulf of Mexico on Google in Mexico. Outside of the two countries, users will see both names on Google Maps.
The Trump administration’s Interior Department said on Friday it had officially changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and the Alaskan peak Denali, the tallest mountain in North America, to Mount McKinley.
Google Maps, which is owned by Alphabet’s Google, will also make a similar change with Mount McKinley.
Trump ordered the name changes as part of a flurry of executive actions hours after taking office on January 20, making good on a campaign promise.
‘As directed by the President, the Gulf of Mexico will now officially be known as the Gulf of America and North America’s highest peak will once again bear the name Mount McKinley,’ the Interior Department said in a statement last week.
Alaska‘s towering peak had been called Mount McKinley before, in honor of former U.S. President William McKinley, but was renamed Denali – meaning ‘tall’ in the Koyukon Indigenous language – in 1975 at the state’s request.
‘These changes reaffirm the Nation’s commitment to preserving the extraordinary heritage of the United States and ensuring that future generations of Americans celebrate the legacy of its heroes and historic assets,’ the department said.
In his inaugural address last Monday, Trump said McKinley, a Republican who was president from 1897 to 1901, ‘made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent – he was a natural businessman.’
McKinley was head of the U.S. in an expansionist era, gaining Hawaii, Guam, and Puerto Rico as territories. Hawaii later became a U.S. state.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum earlier this month jokingly suggested North America, including the United States, be renamed ‘Mexican America’ – a historic name used on an early map of the region.
While Trump can direct the U.S. Geological Survey to change how it denotes the Gulf of Mexico, such a name change would be unlikely to be recognized internationally.
Mexico, which like the U.S. has a long coastline circling the body of water, has said the Gulf of Mexico name is internationally recognized and has been used as a maritime navigational reference going back hundreds of years.
Deep-sea ecologist Andrew Thaler said Trump’s declaration was ‘very silly’ and would likely be ignored by maritime professionals.
‘The Gulf of Mexico, however, is a body of water that borders several countries and includes pockets of high seas,’ said Thaler, founder of Blackbeard Biologic Science and Environmental Advisors.
‘There really isn’t any precedent for a US president renaming international geologic and oceanographic features. Any attempt to rename the entire Gulf of Mexico would be entirely symbolic,’ he said.
Google has applied the same locale-based labeling conventions to other locations subject to naming disputes.
Outside of Japan and South Korea, the body of water bordering both nations is listed as the Sea of Japan (East Sea).
In 2012, Iran threatened to take legal action against Google over its decision to drop the term Persian Gulf from its Google Maps and leaving the waterway between Iran and the Arabian peninsula nameless.
The body of water is now labeled Persian Gulf (Arabian Gulf) in other countries.
