Google will rename the Gulf of Mexico and Mount Denali in Alaska on Google Maps as soon as the federal mapping database reflects the changes ordered by the Trump administration, the company said on Monday.
Google is complying with an executive order issued last week by President Donald Trump that changed the names of several American landmarks. The executive order was followed by a statement from the U.S. Department of the Interior, which said that the name changes are now official and that U.S. place-name authorities are working “expeditiously” to implement Trump’s order.
“We have a long-standing practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources,” Google wrote in its post on X.
The name of the Gulf of Mexico on Google Maps for U.S. users will soon become “The Gulf of America,” a brand new name created by the Trump administration.
Denali, the tallest peak in North America, will soon appear on Google Maps for all users worldwide under the previous name of “Mount McKinley”. The mountain in Alaska was named Mount McKinley in 1917 in honor of the 25th President of America, William McKinley; the peak was renamed Denali during the Obama administration in 2015. The Trump administration is returning the name, despite protests from some Alaskan senators.
However, not everyone in the world who uses Google Maps will see the Gulf of Alaska.
Geographic names that are disputed between different countries are displayed on Google Maps under the official name of each country for their citizens. This is stated in Google’s post on social media. This means that the name of the Gulf of Mexico will not change for Mexican users of Google Maps, where President Claudia Sheinbaum ridiculed Trump for proposing a new name for the reservoir. In other countries, Google Maps will display both the American and Mexican names of the Gulf side by side.
Google says it will make these changes when the official database of American names, the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), is updated. Although the Department of the Interior announced the official name change for the Gulf of Mexico and Mount McKinley on Friday, as of Monday evening, GNIS still shows both sites as the Gulf of Mexico and Denali.
