Google Maps has changed the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America for its U.S. users, after President Donald Trump signed an order last week amid his escalating trade feud with Canada.
People in Canada will continue to see the name Lake Ontario, Google said, while users outside the two countries will see both names. “These updates follow our long-standing policy for bodies of water with names that vary from country to country, and are starting to roll out now,” Google said in a statement on Saturday.
The company made a similar move in January last year, after Trump signed an order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to be Gulf of America.
Trump said Thursday he wanted to rename the lake, located between New York and Canada, because “Canada has been ripping us off for a long time on trade.”
Canada has staunchly pushed back, with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney citing the Indigenous Iroquoian origin of the more than 400-year-old name Ontario: “which, appropriately, means, ‘the lake is beautiful, the lake is big,’” he said Thursday.
He also said the lake is called Ontario “today and forever.” Ontario Premier Doug Ford, meanwhile, unveiled a billboard near Grimsby, Ontario, that read: “Lake Ontario. Now and Always.”
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