Well, this is one of those stories that makes you look twice at the map.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 27 directing the U.S. government to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America” for federal use. The U.S. Geographic Names Information System has now adopted that name.
And Google Maps has followed suit.
Google says it has a long-standing policy of using the official geographic names recognized by governments in each country. So instead of Google deciding for itself what the lake should be called, it is pulling the name from the official U.S. government database.
That creates a pretty unusual situation:
• If you’re using Google Maps in the United States, you now see Lake America.
• If you’re in Canada, you still see Lake Ontario.
• If you’re elsewhere in the world, Google says you may see both names.
So two people can literally be looking at the same body of water on Google Maps and see two different names, depending on which country they’re viewing it from.
Canada, of course, has not renamed Lake Ontario, and Canadian officials have made it clear they still consider it Lake Ontario. The U.S. decision doesn’t change Canada’s official name for the lake.
Whether you think “Lake America” is patriotic, political, unnecessary, funny, or just plain strange, the really interesting part to me is how much influence government databases now have over the digital maps millions of us treat as reality.
We used to say, “It’s on the map, so it must be official.”
Now apparently the better question is:
“Whose map are you looking at — and what country are you standing in?” 🤔🌎
What do you think?
Lake Ontario or Lake America?
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