Google will rename the Gulf of Mexico and the Denal Mountain of Alaska in Google Maps once a federal mapping database reflects the changes ordered by the Trump administration, announced the company on Monday.
Google is respecting an executive order issued last week by President Donald Trump who changed the names of different American reference points. The executive order was followed by a declaration of the United States interior department, according to which the changes of the name were now official and that the American geographical denomination bodies were working “quickly” to satisfy the Trump order.
“We have a long -standing practice to apply changes to the name when they were updated in the official sources of the government,” Google wrote in an X post.
The name of the Gulf of Mexico in Google Maps will soon be the “Gulf of America” for US users, a completely new name created by the Trump Administration.
Denali, which is the highest peak in North America, will soon show up in Google Maps for all global users as the previous name of Mount McKinley. The Alaska Mountain was appointed Monte McKinley in 1917 to honor the 25th American president, William McKinley; The peak was renamed Denali during the Obama administration in 2015. The Trump administration is changing it, despite the protests of some Alaska senators.
However, not everyone in the world using Google Maps will see the Gulf of America.
The geographical names that are contested between different countries are presented in Google Maps with the official name of each country for their citizens, according to a post on Google social media. This means that the name of the Gulf of Mexico will not change for the Mexican users of Google Maps, in which the president of the country, Claudia Sheinbaum, derived Trump for having suggested a new name for the water body. In other countries, Google Maps will show both the names of America and Mexico for the gulf side by side.
Google says that it will make these changes when the official American denomination database is updated, the information system of geographical names or gnis. Although the interior department has announced that the changes in the name of the Gulf of America and the name of Mount McKinley were official on Friday, Gnis still reflects that both are appointed the Gulf of Mexico and Denali starting from Monday evening.
