Google Maps bows to Trump’s ‘Lake America’ order

Donald Trump has apparently decided America needs a little more America.

Google Maps has begun renaming Lake Ontario as “Lake America” for users in the United States, following an executive order from the US President changing the federal name of the Great Lake.

For Canadians, it remains Lake Ontario. For everyone else, Google will show both names.

So, depending on where you open your laptop, geography now comes with terms and conditions.

Google said the change follows its longstanding policy of reflecting names listed in the US Geographic Names Information System, which has been updated following The Don's order.

“People using Maps in the US will see ‘Lake America’, those in Canada will continue to see ‘Lake Ontario’, and those outside of the US and Canada will see both names,” Google said.

“These updates follow our long-standing policy for bodies of water with names that vary from country to country, and are starting to roll out now.”

The move follows Trump’s 2025 order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America for US federal purposes, a change Google also subsequently reflected for American users.

And if anyone was wondering whether the President’s current interest in rebranding stops at bodies of water, little evidence suggests restraint is the prevailing mood.

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Trump puts Trump at number one

Around the same time he was rechristening Lake Ontario, Trump shared his own ranking of US presidents on Truth Social.

There was, perhaps unsurprisingly, a clear winner.

Trump placed Donald Trump alone in a category titled “The Greatest”, above Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson, who had to settle for merely “Great”.

Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Jimmy Carter were among those relegated to the “Failures” category.

The graphic appears to have been adapted from a 1948 presidential ranking based on historians' views, although Trump’s version made some notable additions. Chief among them: Trump.

Canada isn’t playing along

The Lake America order has landed rather less amusingly across the border, where the name Ontario carries centuries of history and Indigenous significance.

Lake Ontario is bordered by Ontario to the north and New York to the south, making Trump’s unilateral rebrand particularly awkward: the US can determine what its federal government calls the lake, but it cannot dictate what Canada, international bodies or the rest of the world calls it.

Indigenous leaders have condemned the decision.

The name Ontario derives from an Indigenous word commonly translated as “beautiful lake” or “sparkling water”.

Grand Chief Pierre Picard of the Wendat Nation in Quebec accused Trump of attempting to erase that history.

“President Trump is trying to erase our history,” he said.

“Outraged, appalled, shocked: there are no other words to express how I feel following President Trump's decision to rename Lake Ontario ‘Lake America.’”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford responded more simply.

On Saturday, a billboard-sized message appeared on the Canadian shore in English and French: “Lake Ontario. Now and always.”

“President Trump can call it whatever he wants, but I can tell you, the rest of the world will always call it Lake Ontario,” Ford said.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has also rejected the change.

Not everyone is updating the map

MapQuest has declined to follow Trump’s order and instead leaned into the spectacle, offering users an online feature that lets them rename Lake Ontario whatever they like.

In the US, the reaction has crossed party lines.

New York’s Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul said: “New York won't be calling it that.”

Republican Vermont Governor Phil Scott called the move “petty and disappointing”.

There have also been some unintended consequences north of the border.

Ontario minister Stephen Crawford said provincial government websites were being reviewed after “Lake America” began appearing on sites that automatically pull mapping information from Google.

“Following recent changes by Google, we're actively reviewing our websites to make sure they all identify Lake Ontario by its correct name: Lake Ontario,” Crawford said.

The episode is unfolding against a considerably more serious backdrop.

The US and Canada are locked in an escalating trade dispute involving billions of dollars in tariffs, and a fight over the name of a lake shared by the two countries has become another, unusually literal, marker of their deteriorating relationship.

Google, meanwhile, has done what Google tends to do when governments rename things: updated the database.

Whether everyone else follows is another matter entirely.