As part of the myriad of executive orders that the new US President Donald Trump signed as he took charge of the office, was an order to rename the Gulf of Mexico, to the Gulf of America. He said last week that the name Gulf of America had a “beautiful ring”.“It’s appropriate. And Mexico has to stop allowing millions of people to pour into our country,” he said.
A few days after that, the interior department of the Trump administration announced that the name change has officially been implemented. “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,” said the interior department. Just a day later, Google announced –– with zero protest –– that the company will be renaming the gulf in Google Maps in the US.
Basically, Google says that once the change in name reflects in the official records in the US –– Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) –– the company will also rename the Gulf of Mexico, to the Gulf of America, for users in the US. For users in Mexico, however, it will continue to show as the Gulf of Mexico.
Are you thinking if that is the usual protocol? Can a company just change the name of a place in maps that millions of people use? Well, according to Google, the company has a “longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government [records]”.
“When official names vary between countries, Maps users see their official local name. Everyone in the rest of the world sees both names. That applies here too,” the company added in its post on X.
This is not the first time that Google has agreed to do something like this. Google has applied this area-based geographic naming in Japan and South Korea as well. Outside of Japan and South Korea, the body of water that borders both the countries is listed on Google Maps as the “Sea of Japan (East Sea)”. In 2012, Iran had warned Google of a legal action after the company removed the name “Persian Gulf” from its maps services, leaving the waterway between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula, nameless. In other regions, the water body is currently labeled as “Persian Gulf (Arabian Gulf)” on Google Maps.
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