The Trump administration declared on Friday that the Gulf of Mexico had been renamed the Gulf of America, but the popular Google and Apple mapping services continued to show the old name.
On Monday Google said he would have updated his maps to show Gulf of America as soon as the United States government updated his official maps.
“We have a long -standing practice to apply changes to the name when they were updated in official government sources,” said the company in an X post.
President Trump signed an executive order on January 20, his first day in office, to rename the Gulf, as well as changing the name of the highest mountain in North America. That peak, which was known by the native name of the Alaska Denali since 2015, was renamed Mount McKinley, a previous name.
The United States Department of Interior declared Friday that it was implementing the executive order, but that the official government maps had not yet been updated by the information system of geographical names, or Gnis, which is part of the United States geological survey.
Google said that once each made the change, “quickly” will follow the example in its popular Maps application, which is a crucial source of information on geography for over two billion users. The company has declared that the name of Denali will also change, which is located in Alaska, in Monte McKinley, in accordance with the change of the new administration.
While Google users in the United States will see the name of the Gulf of America, those in Mexico will continue to see “Gulf of Mexico”, which is how that country refers to the water body.
Users in other parts of the world will see both names side by side, the company said in what described as a “long -standing practice”. The name of the Gulf of Mexico will first appear for these users, followed by the name of the Gulf of America in brackets, said two people with knowledge of the plans of the company, who were not authorized to speak publicly.
Google refused to comment on the order of names. Apple’s representatives did not respond to a request for comment on the fact that the company would adopt the name of the Gulf of America for his demand for maps.
Google Maps habitually uses different names to refer to the same places, depending on the position of a user, especially if there is a geopolitical dispute, three people said with knowledge of the company’s policies. The water body between Saudi Arabia and Iran has been subject to disputes for decades. Google labels the Gulf with two names for international users: “Persian Gulf (Arabian Gulf)”. In the Arab countries near the water body, Google Maps calls it the Arab Gulf.
When the Obama administration changed the name of the Alaska mountain from Mount McKinley to Denali in August 2015, Google updated the maps to reflect the change of name three days later.
Kate Conger AND Mike Isaac Contributed relationships.