Topline
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said President Donald Trump reached out to Apple “directly” to ask it to change Lake Ontario to “Lake America” on its map app as the White House moves quickly to rename another geographic feature to spite a neighboring nation.
President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum are seen at an executive order signing renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America.
AFP via Getty Images
Key Facts
Burgum predicted on Fox Business on Monday morning a switch from Apple was “coming up soon.”
As of 10 a.m. EDT on Monday morning, Apple Maps displays the name “Lake Ontario” for U.S. users.
The company has made other name changes to comply with the Trump administration’s renaming efforts—U.S. users see the “Gulf of America” instead of the Gulf of Mexico, as well as Mount McKinley instead of Denali.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Forbes.
Key Background
Trump officially changed Lake Ontario’s name in federal databases to Lake America through an executive order signed on Thursday, days after the Canadian government levied retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. as part of an ongoing trade war between the two countries. Although Apple Maps has not changed Lake Ontario’s name as of Monday, Google Maps implemented the change over the weekend. In a statement on Saturday, the company reiterated its policy of sourcing location names from the U.S. Geographic Names Information System, a process Burgum also spoke about on Monday. “They plug that into the software, and then that software cascades down to all the map providers,” Burgum said, calling the process part of the “inside baseball” of changing long-accepted names like Lake Ontario. Canadian users still see the name “Lake Ontario” for the body of water, Google said, while users outside either country will now see both names.
Contra
At least one online map provider has said it will not display the “Lake America” name. In a brief statement on social media on Thursday, MapQuest said “we’re not changing it.” The legacy online mapping company also released an online tool for users to rename Lake Ontario themselves.
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