Apple changed the name of Lake Ontario to "Lake America" on the web version of its Apple Maps following US President Donald Trump's executive order renaming the lake.
The move by Apple on Tuesday (Sep 1) followed a decision by Alphabet late on Saturday to change the name of the lake on its Google Maps for US users.
Apple confirmed that US users will see “Lake America” following a change to the body of water’s name in the US Geographic Names Information System.
Users in Canada will continue to see Lake Ontario, and users in the rest of the world will see both names, following the same approach Apple used after Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
The name changes illustrate how US tech companies are being pulled into geopolitical disputes as the Trump administration pressures them to comply with executive orders that allies and international bodies have rejected.
Trump's executive order on Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes of North America, applies to US federal usage for the lake, and does not govern what Canada, international bodies or other organisations call the lake.
A majority of Americans oppose Trump's moves last week to raise taxes on imported Canadian goods and his order to rename Lake Ontario as "Lake America", a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
Within hours of Trump's executive order, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said they would not be changing the name, which is more than 400 years old. New York borders the lake on the US side.
About 52 per cent of the surface area of Lake Ontario is in Canada, with the remainder in New York.
Since early 2025, Trump has repeatedly taunted Canada about becoming the 51st US state, an idea Canadian leaders have dismissed as ridiculous.
Trump also ordered the Gulf of Mexico renamed to the Gulf of America in January 2025, and both Google and Apple revised their map apps to reflect the change for US users.
Source: Reuters
--Agencies
