Same water, two names, depending on where you’re standing. Following Google Maps, Lake Ontario has been renamed “Lake America” for Apple Maps users in the US as well. Those in Canada and other countries will still see the old name, according to the BBC .
The renaming was ordered by US President Donald Trump , on the sidelines of the US-Canada trade dispute . The collapse of talks between the two countries led to 50% tariffs on Canadian goods worth a total of $20 billion . The change in maps, in other words, is not a geographical decision but an extension of a trade confrontation into the symbolic realm.
Google had made a similar change for its American users, sparking strong reactions on social media. Trump’s executive order gives the US Department of the Interior 30 days to register the new name with the Geographic Names Information Service , the country’s official database of place names.
The Canadian response came in the most tangible way. A new sign was placed on the lake with the phrase “Lake Ontario. Now and Always.”
Behind the controversy lies a historical parameter that makes the case more complex. The names of four of the five Great Lakes , namely Ontario, Huron, Michigan and Erie, come from words of indigenous peoples . Lake Superior took its name from an Anglicized French word, while the name Erie passed into English through the French. The replacement of such a name therefore concerns not only the relations of two countries.
Not all map providers followed suit, however. Free online service MapQuest said on Friday that it would not change its name.
The episode is not the first of its kind. Both Google and Apple have already changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America for American users, also under Trump’s orders.
What is emerging is a new reality for digital maps. For decades, they were seen as neutral tools, recorders of a reality that existed independently of them. But the ability to display different names depending on the user’s geographical location turns them into a field for political action. And the question that arises is simple. If a map can say different things to different people, what exactly is it recording?
