President Donald Trump has urged Apple to rename Lake Ontario to “Lake America” on its maps, according to a senior U.S. government official. This renaming request has caused uproar in Canada amidst ongoing trade tensions. U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum revealed in an interview with Fox Business that Trump personally contacted Apple regarding the name change. It is anticipated that the alteration to “Lake America” could be implemented soon.
Recently, Trump issued an executive order to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America” following the breakdown of Canada-U.S. trade negotiations and the imposition of significant tariffs by the United States on various Canadian products. In response, Canada announced retaliatory tariffs set to take effect next week. Despite these developments, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney firmly rejected the renaming, affirming in a social media post that the lake, situated between Ontario and New York state as one of the Great Lakes, will forever be known as Lake Ontario.
Google announced that users in the United States utilizing Google Maps would now see “Lake America” instead of Lake Ontario, citing official government sources for the name change. While Canadians accessing Google Maps will still see Lake Ontario, some Ontario and Canadian websites inadvertently displayed Lake America due to third-party protocols pulling data from Google’s U.S. API. However, affected websites, including Hydro One and LCBO in Ontario, have since reverted to labeling the lake as Lake Ontario.
Apple has not yet responded to inquiries regarding whether Trump requested the lake’s renaming on Apple Maps and if they intend to make the change. As of the latest check on Monday, Apple Maps in Canada continued to identify the body of water as Lake Ontario. Notably, Trump previously issued a similar executive order in 2025 renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, impacting federal documents and geographic services in the U.S. Some online mapping services and American news outlets have adopted the name “Gulf of America,” while Apple Maps currently lists the area as “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America).”