Google Maps has officially rolled out President Donald Trump’s rebrand of Lake Ontario, now displaying the body of water as “Lake America” for users in the United States. With Google on board, the administration is now setting its sights on getting another major tech player to follow suit.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum appeared on Mornings With Maria on Fox Business Monday and revealed that the president is actively working to bring Apple into the fold on the name change.
Burgum walked host Cheryl Casone through how the rebrand made its way from the Oval Office to the map on your phone, explaining that the change stems from an executive order signed by Trump on Thursday.
“When the President signs an executive order, you know, reflecting a name change like the Gulf of America or Lake America, it does direct the Department of Interior…the Board of Geographic Names, is part of the U.S. Geologic Survey, that great mapping institution and science institution which is part of the Department of the Interior,” Burgum said. “They plug that into the software and then that software cascades down so all the providers would do that.”
According to Burgum, Trump isn’t just leaving it to bureaucratic channels this time around — he’s personally making the case to Apple.
“I know that the president reached out to Apple directly, so I’m sure that we may be seeing that change coming up soon to Lake America,” Burgum said.
Google addressed the update in a Sunday blog post, laying out the reasoning behind the switch and how it will appear differently depending on where users are located.
“The U.S. 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., people using Maps in the U.S. will see ‘Lake America,’ those in Canada will continue to see ‘Lake Ontario,’ and those outside of the U.S. and Canada will see both names,” the company explained. “These updates follow our long-standing policy for bodies of water with names that vary from country to country, and are starting to roll out now.”
The move mirrors the administration’s earlier push to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, another change that tech companies incorporated into their mapping platforms following government direction. With Google already implementing the Lake America name and Trump personally lobbying Apple, it appears the rebrand of the Great Lake could soon be reflected across the country’s most widely used mapping platforms.
