The President of the United States welcomed, Sunday August 30, that Google Maps had renamed Lake Ontario “Lake of America” for its users in the United States, after a decision to this effect by Donald Trump.
“It’s official!” It’s LAKE OF AMERICA on Google Maps! »wrote Steven Cheung, White House communications director, on the social network ” immediately “ the name of the lake located on the border. This decision, which does not result in any international recognition of the new name, was strongly contested by the Canadian authorities.
“It’s completely absurd”regretted Doug Ford, premier of the province of Ontario, on the ABC channel. “No one is going to call it ‘Lake America.’ »
In a blog post, Google explains that it changed the name for users in the United States in order to comply with official government sources, in this case the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
The precedent of the Gulf of Mexico
Users of the application in Canada will continue to see the name “Lake Ontario”while the rest of the world will see the two names juxtaposed. On Maps, the Apple application competing with Maps, that of Lake Ontario was still displayed on Sunday.
Donald Trump had ordered in the same way, at the very beginning of his second term, to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico in “Gulf of America”. This decision, strongly contested by Mexico, resulted in a modification of the display on Google and Apple applications.
The change in the name of the American-Canadian lake comes at the time of a new offensive by the Republican president against Canada, whose possible annexation he has repeatedly mentioned. Sunday afternoon, in a message published on his Truth Social network, the American president once again accused the neighboring country of “to strip” the United States and, “for centuries”.
“I deal with the leaders of many countries, but I find those of Canada to be the worst”he added. The two countries are, for the moment, going head to head when it comes to customs taxes.
