Google has said it will change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America” in Google Maps following President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico in the U.S.
The announcement came Monday on X, when Google wrote that the new name will be visible to users in the United States once the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is updated.
“When that happens, we will update Google Maps in the U.S. quickly to show Mount McKinley and Gulf of America,” Google said.
Mount McKinley, located in Denali National Park in Alaska, was changed from Mount McKinley to Denali in 2015 during the administration of former U.S. president Barack Obama. Denali is a local Athabascan name for the mountain.
Google explained that when official names differ between countries, Maps users see the official local name — meaning that the change will be visible in the U.S. but not in Mexico, where the name will remain “Gulf of Mexico.”
Following what the tech company called “a longstanding practice,” Google said that users located outside of the two countries will see both names on Google Maps.
Google’s announcement on X followed queries by users.
“We’ve received a few questions about naming within Google Maps,” the company wrote on X. These questions follow Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as part of his pledge to honor “America’s greatness.”
The Gulf of Mexico was first shown as the official name on maps used by 16th-century Spanish explorers, prior to the founding of the United States.
On Friday, the Secretary of the Interior announced that efforts are underway to remove all mentions of the Gulf of Mexico in the GNIS, “effective immediately for federal use.” In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis already began using the name Gulf of America after putting it in a weather forecast saying that an “area of low pressure was moving across the Gulf of America.”
A recent example of conflict over geographic nomenclature elsewhere involves Iran and Arabic nations, regarding the Gulf that both regions share. Historically known as the Persian Gulf, in recent years, Arab countries have pushed to change the name to the “Arabian Gulf.”
While Google Maps displays the official local name, the Gulf is primarily shown as the Persian Gulf in other countries.
Mexico News Daily
