Google Maps Showcases the New Name of the Gulf of Mexico After Donald Trump's Executive Order

Many geographical regions have been renamed throughout the history. However, people using Google Maps in the U.S. were stunned to find the Gulf of Mexico getting renamed as the Gulf of America on the app in February 2025, according to BBC. Google revealed that they were making the change as a part of a "longstanding practice" following President Donald Trump's return to the presidential office. Trump ordered the water body to be renamed in the U.S. government documents as well.

The Gulf shares its borders with America, Cuba, and Mexico. But people living in Mexico and using Google Maps won't be witnessing the change of names on their apps. The rest of the world would find the "Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)" on their phones. Apple also adopted the change in their map application and the users of Apple devices would see the change in later dates, per U.S. Bloomberg, as reported by BBC. On the other hand, Mexico promptly opposed the decision to rename the Gulf, arguing that the U.S. had no legal right to change the name.

"The Gulf of America, formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico, with an average depth of 5300 ft is a major body of water bordered and nearly landlocked by North America with the Gulf's eastern, northern, and northwestern shores in the U.S. and its southwestern and southern shores in Mexico," a listing made by Geographic Names Information System read. Trump reportedly released an executive order to "restore names that honor America's greatness." After signing the order, Trump proclaimed that February 9 would be celebrated as "Gulf of America Day." ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ 

"I call upon public officials and all the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities," a White House statement revealed, per the outlet. Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum requested Google to reconsider its decision that aligned with Trump's order. Sheinbaum pointed out that the name can't be changed because the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea dictates that an individual country's sovereign territory only extends up to 12 nautical miles from the coastline.

Trump signed the executive order on January 20, 2025, to restore the name of Denali, the tallest mountain in North America to its previous name, Mount McKinley. Google was also in sync with these changes as they started tweaking default events in calendars, such as removing cultural events and holidays including Pride and Black History Month. Google released its statement, revealing that "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," the company said in their statement, per the outlet.