Apple has updated the US version of Apple Maps to identify Lake Ontario as “Lake America," following President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to rename the body of water, Reuters reported Tuesday.
Apple confirmed that users in the United States will see the new name after the lake was renamed in the US Geographic Names Information System. Users in Canada will continue to see “Lake Ontario," while users elsewhere in the world will see both names.
The approach mirrors the one Apple adopted after Trump ordered the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
Apple’s move came shortly after Alphabet, Google’s parent company, made a similar change on Google Maps for users in the United States late Saturday.
Despite Google’s indication that its Lake America designation would apply only in the US, several Canadian websites, including government services, briefly displayed the lake under the new name on Sunday.
Trump announced last Thursday that he wanted the lake to be known as “Lake America" in the United States, as tensions between Washington and Ottawa continue to rise amid a broader trade dispute.
The President signed an executive order at the Resolute Desk instructing the Interior Department to change the lake’s name in the US geographic naming system. The order gives the department 30 days to implement the change, although Trump said the decision was “official, effective immediately."
Trump also said he had “notified all of the various people that we have to notify. So, we’ve done everything that you have to do."
The dispute over the lake’s name comes against the backdrop of escalating economic tensions between the US and Canada. Washington imposed 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods after trade negotiations collapsed, while Ottawa responded with tariffs covering $20 billion in American products, including steel, dairy products, appliances and agricultural equipment.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney rejected the renaming effort and pointed to the longstanding origins of the name Lake Ontario.
“The name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, means ‘the lake is beautiful, the lake is big"."
“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," added Carney.
“We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms. Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario - then, now and always," concluded the Prime Minister.