Apple Maps changed the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America” in the US. The company took this step by following Google, which made the same change after a presidential executive order signed by Donald Trump during his trade dispute with Canada.
According to Bloomberg, the name “Lake Ontario” is preserved in the Canadian version of Apple Maps, while both names are displayed in international versions. Apple and Google also renamed the Gulf of Mexico “Gulf of America” following a similar executive order last year. MapQuest did not change the names of either body of water.
Why it matters
The change shows that the reflection of a political decision in place names on digital maps can differentiate the user experience across countries. The fact that the same lake appears under its old name in the Canadian version and under both names in international versions reveals that mapping services do not merely provide technical data; they can also produce different content based on regional and political preferences. Apple’s adoption of the same practice after Google shows that the two major platforms are handling decree-linked naming in a similar way, while MapQuest’s decision not to make the change reveals that this approach has not become an industry-wide consensus. Therefore, the key unresolved issue is whether the name users encounter in a given country or on a given service will continue to vary by platform.
Background
Apple is not a new name in the FikirPilot archive: We have published 26 reports mentioning this name in the last 90 days; the latest is dated 2 September 2026.