Last week, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names played an essential role to enact the Secretary’s Order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
Following President Trump’s Executive Order 14172, “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness,” Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum signed on February 7 Secretary’s Order 3423, “The Gulf of America,” and directed the BGN to immediately rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
The order states, “The area formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico has long been an indelible part of America and an asset to our Nation. The Gulf has played a pivotal role in shaping America’s history and promises to play a vital role in our future, serving as a flourishing natural resource of critical importance to our Nation’s economy and people.”
The USGS updated the Gulf’s name to coincide with the President’s Proclamation to recognize February 9, 2025, as the first ever Gulf of America Day.
Federal agencies are currently in the process of updating their maps, products, and services to reflect the Gulf of America name change.
To accelerate adoption of the new name, the USGS has updated the USGS topoBuilder application to ensure that the public can rapidly generate paper maps with the new name. The USGS has also invested additional funding to speed up topoBuilder’s responsiveness in anticipation of high demand. In addition, the new name is featured in popular USGS applications like the National Map Viewer, Lidar Explorer, and the Geographic Names Information System Search Tool.
A name change of this magnitude has multiple facets and requires the efforts of many. Adoption of the new name has also been seen across the nation in commercial applications like Google Maps and Apple Maps.
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