The Trump administration declared on Friday that the Gulf of Mexico had been renamed the Gulf of America, but popular mapping services from Google and Apple have continued showing the old name.
On Monday, Google said it would update its maps to display Gulf of America as soon as the U.S. government updated its official maps.
“We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources,” the company said in a post on X.
President Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 20, his first day in office, to rename the gulf, in addition to changing the name of the tallest mountain in North America. That peak, which had been known by the Alaska Native name Denali since 2015, was renamed Mount McKinley, an earlier name.
The U.S. Department of the Interior said on Friday that it was implementing the executive order, but that official government maps had not yet been updated from the Geographic Names Information System, or G.N.I.S., which is a part of the U.S. Geological Survey.
Google said that once the G.N.I.S. made the change, it would “quickly” follow suit in its popular Maps application, which is a crucial source of information about geography for more than two billion users. The company said it would also change the name of Denali, which is in Alaska, to Mount McKinley, in accordance with the new administration’s change.
While Google users in the United States will see the Gulf of America name, those in Mexico will continue to see “Gulf of Mexico,” which is how that country refers to the body of water.
Users elsewhere in the world will see both names side by side, the company said in what it described as a “longstanding practice.” The Gulf of Mexico name will appear first for these users, followed by the Gulf of America name in parentheses, said two people with knowledge of the company’s plans, who were not authorized to speak publicly.
Google declined to comment on the order of the names. Apple representatives did not respond to a request for comment on whether the company would adopt the Gulf of America name for its Maps application.
Google Maps routinely uses different names to refer to the same places, depending on the location of a user, especially if there is a geopolitical dispute, three people with knowledge of the company’s policies said. The body of water between Saudi Arabia and Iran has been subject to naming disputes for decades. Google labels the gulf under two names for international users: “Persian Gulf (Arabian Gulf).” In Arab countries near the body of water, Google Maps calls it the Arabian Gulf.
When the Obama administration changed the name of the Alaska mountain from Mount McKinley to Denali in August 2015, Google updated Maps to reflect the name change three days later.
Kate Conger and Mike Isaac contributed reporting.
