After Google Maps, Apple Maps has now renamed Lake Ontario as “Lake America” for users in the US after a presidential executive order. The update means Apple users in the United States will see ‘Lake America’ when viewing the Great Lake that sits between New York and Canada’s Ontario province. Users outside the US will continue to see the lake as Lake Ontario. Sharing a post on X (formerly Twitter), US President Donald Trump called the name change ‘complete, ratified, and binding’.“Apple Maps has just announced that it has changed the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America, so now that very important change of names, between Google Maps and Apple Maps, is complete, ratified, and binding. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP,” Trump wrote in the post.
Apple follows Google Maps with Lake America change
Google Maps changed its display label for Lake Ontario over the weekend, saying it was following the US Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), which had formally changed the name in the United States. Google then said its Maps service would show different names depending on the user’s location. People in the US would see “Lake America”, users in Canada would see “Lake Ontario”, while users outside the US and Canada would see both names.
Canada continues to call it Lake Ontario
Canadian officials have rejected the name change and said the country will continue using Lake Ontario in its official records. Prime Minister Mark Carney has pointed to the history of the name, saying it is more than 400 years old and comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io.“The name is more than 400 years old, predating both the Confederation of Canada and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America,” Carney said.
MapQuest refuses to rename the lake
Notably, not every mapping service has followed Google and Apple. MapQuest has rejected the request to use “Lake America”. The company posted a screenshot showing the name Lake Ontario with the message: “We’re not changing it.” According to a Guardian report, the move reportedly helped MapQuest rise to the top of Apple’s US App Store rankings.