GoKawiilA hot potato: Apple has followed Google's lead in renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America on its maps app – though it took a presidential push. Only those based in the US will see the change, while those in Canada will continue to see it as Lake Ontario. Everyone else will see both names on the map.
After trade talks between the US and Canada broke down last month over what Prime Minister Mark Carney's office called unacceptable demands, President Trump signed an executive order changing the lake's name. Washington also imposed new 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods. Canada says it will introduce "dollar-for-dollar" counter-tariffs.
Google was quick to change the name on Google Maps, explaining that it was a reflection of official government sources – the US Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), in this case.
The company explained that while US users will see the body of water named Lake America, it will show as Lake Ontario in Canada. Those in the rest of the world see both names.
Apple wasn't as quick to follow suit, and it reportedly took the president's intervention to give Cupertino a push. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said that Trump reached out to the company directly about the change appearing in Apple Maps.
Around 52% of the lake's surface area is in Canada, with the remainder in New York.
If this all feels familiar, it's because we've been in this situation before. Trump signed an executive order last year that officially changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Both Apple and Google changed the name for their map users in the United States, while those in Mexico see the original. Everyone else sees both names.
Mexico was so annoyed that Google changed the name that it sued the company. The first federal lawsuit was dismissed in March 2025 for lack of jurisdiction and was not appealed. A second case was filed in a Mexico City court. It produced an initial, appealable order directing Google to correct the name, but this was not a final judgment. By January 2026, President Claudia Sheinbaum acknowledged that she did not know how the case was progressing and said her legal office needed to follow up.
A Reuters poll found that most people oppose Trump's decision to rename the lake. The long-running mapping service MapQuest looks to be taking advantage of this by posting on X that it will not be renaming Lake Ontario. It seems to have worked, too: it's since become the top navigation app in the App Store.