Tech giants Google and Apple have seem to come under heel of newly-elected President Trump, whose proclamation renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America has literally changed maps.
Though Donald Trump signed an executive order proclaiming several federal name changes like the Gulf of America and changing Mt. Denali back to Mt. McKinley, only now have Apple and Google changed their popular map apps to reflect the former.
That’s right – if you load up Google Maps or Apple Maps, generally considered the defacto options for modern navigation, you’ll now see the Gulf of America just east of Mexico and south of the continental United States.
The Geographic Names Information System, a database run by the US Interior Department, updated the Gulf’s name back on January 20th when the original executive order came through:
The Gulf of America, formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico, with an average depth 5300 ft is a major body of water bordered and nearly landlocked by North America with the Gulf’s eastern, northern, and northwestern shores in the U.S. and its southwestern and southern shores in Mexico. Bordered by Cuba on the SE, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean via the Florida Straits between the U.S. and Cuba, and the Caribbean Sea via the Yucatan Channel between Mexico and Cuba. In common usage, the term “Gulf Coast” refers to the continuous portion of the coast running from Cape Sable, FL to the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula; in geographic usage it extends East from and to include the Florida Keys to the northerly sides of the Keys there. The Gulf of America spans over 1,700 miles of U.S. coastline.
What’s interesting is that the name change on Google and Apple for the Gulf of America didn’t come for weeks after Trump’s original executive order. While en route to Super Bowl LIX, Trump signed another executive order declaring February 9th the “Gulf of America Day.”
Soon after that declaration Google announced their maps would change, and later this afternoon Apple changed over their maps. It’s worth noting their popular map apps will still show the Gulf of Mexico to people using their apps in Mexico.
Furthermore, when other areas of the world now load up Google or Apple maps they will see the label “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)”. Soon after President Trump announced plans to rename the body of water, Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum said the US has no legal right to change its name.
That same executive order also renamed the Alaskan mountain Denali back to its original name, Mt. McKinley, named after former US President William McKinley. Neither Google or Apple maps have been updated to reflect this new name change.
It’s also worth pointing out the volunteer editors on Wikipedia refuse to acknowledge the official and federal name changes for both the Gulf of America and Mt. McKinley, resorting to noting the new names as footnotes.
While the claim to ownership of the Gulf is disputable, Alaska (where the mountain resides) has been a state within the federal republic for decades, so Wikipedia editors have been in a furious debate over changing its page name over to its official federal name (they even made a separate page for the dispute).
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