Google has relabelled Lake Ontario as 'Lake America' on its US-facing Maps product, citing an executive order by President Donald Trump that directed federal agencies to adopt the new name. The change applies only inside the United States; Canadian users continue to see 'Lake Ontario' and users elsewhere see both labels, Google said.
The company framed the move as compliance with its standing practice of mirroring the US Geographic Names Information System, the official federal geographic names database. Trump's order directs US agencies to make the change by Sunday and follows his earlier directive to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, which Google also applied regionally.
The dispute is playing out against an escalating trade conflict that includes a 50% US tariff on Canadian steel and retaliatory Canadian duties on US goods, with talks stalled. Ontario Premier Doug Ford unveiled a two-storey 'Lake Ontario. Now and Always' billboard on the Canadian shoreline, and Prime Minister Mark Carney publicly rejected the renaming, citing the lake's Indigenous Wendat origins.
MapQuest has declined to rename the lake and added a feature letting users apply their own label, signalling that private mapping platforms are not uniformly following the US federal directive.