Google Maps users in the United States can expect to see the body of water known for centuries as the Gulf of Mexico renamed the Gulf of America, aligning with the terms of President Trump’s controversial executive order. Google also said Denali, a mountain in southern Alaska and North America’s tallest peak, is going to be called Mount McKinley on its maps for those same users, reflecting the presidential mandate.
The changes will not take effect until the government updates those site listings in the Geographic Names Information System, an official database that includes descriptions and location information for millions of places within the U.S. As of Tuesday morning, the Gulf of Mexico and Denali still appear as such in the directory.
“We’ve received a few questions about naming within Google Maps. We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources,” wrote Google in a social media post Monday. Their policy is to implement title changes for geographic features in the U.S. after the adjustments appear in the Geographic Names Information System.
“When that happens, we will update Google Maps in the U.S. quickly to show Mount McKinley and Gulf of America,” the tech company said.
Google noted that a location’s name may appear differently depending on where Maps users are. When a place’s title varies between countries, users will see the official name used by the country where they’re accessing Maps. Everyone elsewhere in the world sees both names.
The Interior Department announced Friday that the Gulf of Mexico had been renamed the Gulf of America, and Denali had, again, been renamed Mount McKinley, in response to a directive signed by Mr. Trump shortly after he took office.
In a news release, the agency said the changes “reaffirm the Nation’s commitment to preserving the extraordinary heritage of the United States and ensuring that future generations of Americans celebrate the legacy of its heroes and historic assets.” The U.S. Board on Geographic Names was set to begin updating “the official federal nomenclature in the Geographic Names Information System to reflect these changes, effective immediately for federal use,” the department added.
Although the federal government will formally reference both the Gulf and the mountain by their new names — in government documents and official U.S. maps, for example — other nations are not required recognize them. The Associated Press, whose style guidance many news organizations typically follow, said it will call the Gulf of Mexico by its original name while acknowledging the name Gulf of America. The AP will also refer to Denali as Mount McKinley, since Mr. Trump’s position gives him authority to alter geographical names of places inside the country.
The Gulf of Mexico first appeared on a world map roughly 400 years ago, as Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum pointed out during a briefing earlier this month where she derided what was at the time Mr. Trump’s proposal to rename the ocean basin that shares near-equal lengths of coastline with her country and the U.S. Citing one of Mexico’s founding documents that dates to the early 1800s and preceded the nation’s constitution, Sheinbaum sarcastically suggested renaming North America “América Mexicana,” which translates to “Mexican America.”
Denali’s name comes from the Koyukon Indigenous residents of Alaska who are native to area around the mountain. Subject to dispute over the decades, the U.S. designated it Mount McKinley in the early 1900s to commemorate a slain president. The name was changed formally to Denali by former President Barack Obama during his administration.
