Google Maps to change name of Gulf of Mexico to ‘Gulf of America’ after Trump order
Google Maps to change name of Gulf of Mexico to ‘Gulf of America’ after Trump order
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Change, which will only be visible to US users, comes after president signs executive order renaming body of water. The Gulf of Mexico is set to be renamed “Gulf of America” by Google after US president Donald Trump ordered the name change just hours after taking office.
![[Google CEO Sundar Pichai (fourth from the left) at Trump’s inauguration alongside Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and his wife, and Elon Musk]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/22/17/SEI236711784.jpg)
The change will be visible in the US, with both names appearing to Google Maps users outside of the country. In Mexico, it will remain the Gulf of Mexico. The US officially changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and the Alaskan peak Denali, the tallest mountain in North America, to Mount McKinley, Trump’s team said last week.
![[US president Donald Trump ordered the name change just hours after taking office]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/27/23/2194444069.jpg)
“The Gulf of Mexico will now officially be known as the Gulf of America and North America’s highest peak will once again bear the name Mount McKinley,” the Interior Department said. Google Maps, which is owned by tech giant Alphabet, will make a similar change with Mount McKinley once it is officially updated in the US Geographic Names System.
The mountain was named Mount McKinley until 2015, when president Barack Obama’s administration changed it to Denali as a symbolic gesture to Alaska Natives. “We’ve received a few questions about naming within Google Maps,” the company said in an X post on Monday.
“We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.”. Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum earlier this month jokingly suggested North America be renamed “Mexican America“ - a historic name used on an early map of the region.
