‘Gulf of America’ arrives on Google Maps

The body of water formerly known in the United States as the Gulf of Mexico is now listed for US-based users of Google Maps as the Gulf of America.

The change follows an executive order by US President Donald Trump renaming the area. Google has previously said it has “a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.”

“People using Maps in the US will see ‘Gulf of America,’ and people in Mexico will see ‘Gulf of Mexico.’ Everyone else will see both names,” it said in a statement Monday.

Google said last month it would also change the name of Mount McKinley, the nation’s highest peak, from Denali following Trump’s order. Former President Barack Obama renamed the Alaska landmark to Denali in 2015 as a nod to the region’s native population. But that change hasn’t been made on Google Maps as of Tuesday.

Both changes stem from an executive action that Trump signed shortly after taking office, saying the changes “honor American greatness.”

The order criticized Obama’s decision to rename McKinley as “an affront to President McKinley’s life, his achievements, and his sacrifice.” Drawing parallels to Trump, the order notes that McKinley “championed tariffs” and was assassinated “in an attack on our Nation’s values and our success.”

The US Federal Aviation Administration also issued a notice Monday regarding the geographical name changes.

“Please be advised that the FAA is in the process of updating our data and charts to show a name change from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and a name change from Denali to Mount McKinley,” the agency said.

The US Coast Guard, responsible for patrolling the nation’s maritime coastal waters, has also begun incorporating the new Gulf of America name change in its public notices.

Calendar changes

Some Google users have also begun noticing changes on Google Calendar that some say appear to deemphasize diversity.

For example, certain holidays and events, including Pride Month and Black History Month, are no longer displayed by default on the first day of the respective months, sparking some people to criticize the company on its message boards.

However, a Google spokesperson told CNN that the changes were implemented last year as part of broader revamp of the calendar tool based on user input.

“Some years ago, the Calendar team started manually adding a broader set of cultural moments in a wide number of countries around the world,” said a Google spokesperson.

“We got feedback that some other events and countries were missing — and maintaining hundreds of moments manually and consistently globally wasn’t scalable or sustainable. So in mid-2024 we returned to showing only public holidays and national observances from timeanddate.com globally, while allowing users to manually add other important moments.”

Source: CNN
--Agencies