Google Maps now shows the 'Gulf of America'
118 comments
·February 11, 2025yosito
ryandrake
Where does it end though? If he decides tomorrow to start calling Canada "Beaverland," will all our maps change again?
SequoiaHope
Many people are currently desperately trying to figure out where it will all end, with possible outcomes much worse than renaming places on maps.
tlavoie
Well, the "Gulf of America" nonsense is also shown here, in brackets after "Gulf of Mexico." So it seems like they're not content with just keeping it to the US as originally stated.
xiphias2
Probably not, as polls show that it was his second worst decision in his voter group.
He is polling quite well with his voters, this was more just a power play.
amazingamazing
why waste time and energy discussing silly things he might do when he is literally doing silly things now, for real?
Nevermark
> Where does it end though? If he decides tomorrow to start calling Canada "Beaverland," will all our maps change again? reply
> why waste time and energy discussing silly things he might do when he is literally doing silly things now, for real?
The example used was making a larger point than, oh no, "Canada -> Beaverstan", for laughs.
The point is: What line would be too far for industry to resist presidential renaming by fiat. A kind of power with known risks. Renaming by fiat has a name, "Newspeak", a term coined in the not very silly book, 1984, by George Orwell.
Trump has a history of doing lots of "silly" things just to see if he can. It is a low risk way for him to pre-test, or pre-expand, any barriers to more serious expressions of his power. Such as renaming things in a way that undermines or alters the impact of laws.
486sx33
A great idea! I rather like beaver-land it sounds like such a wonderful place.
In all seriousness this started in trumps first term when he insisted on changing NAFTA to USMCA while canada calls it CUSMA and Mexico calls it T-MEC … so it’s the no one agrees on anything agreement
JumpCrisscross
> canada calls it CUSMA and Mexico calls it T-MEC
Huh, Tratado entre México, Estados Unidos y Canadá, TIL!
(Honestly, kind of genius.)
JumpCrisscross
> Where does it end
Same way every naming fight does. Each side requires its own labels.
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mrastro
Maybe Trump's plan to make Canada part of the United States, just rename Canada to the "United States" in the GNIS database and they appear part of the same country (at least within the real "United States" borders, Google implements names based on a Geo fence for each country).
aaron695
[dead]
Dudelander
Like I said, loyalty test.
ljsprague
Good.
diggernet
One detail I've not seen mentioned in these discussions is that the EO specifically identifies "the U.S. Continental Shelf area bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the States of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and extending to the seaward boundary with Mexico and Cuba". I'm not sure exactly what that looks like on a map, but it's clearly focused on US coastal waters. (Which kind of makes sense, because GNIS has no naming authority outside of US borders.) But it also makes the implementation by Google Maps wrong, since a large part (a majority, I think) of the gulf is still the Gulf of Mexico. It seems like the area should be drawn as two adjacent gulfs, the Gulf of America to the North and East, and the Gulf of Mexico to the South and West.
(Not debating the merits, just pondering mapping details.)
AlotOfReading
This depends on whether it's a regional name applied to the body of water or a specific name applied to the territorial waters within the greater region encompassed by the original name. Google has chosen to regard it as a regional name applied to the entire body rather than as a specific name for territorial waters implied by the EO. They do this for other regionalized names like "South China Sea" (e.g. "East Sea" in Vietnam).
losvedir
I was surprised to learn when living in Bahrain that what I knew of as the "Persian Gulf", is there known as the "Arabian Gulf". Only tangentially relevant, but kind of interesting.
walthamstow
I get "Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)" on a Japanese connection.
This stuff is obviously pointless and silly but it's nothing new. I'm sure Google Maps shows UK and French users different names for what I would call the English Channel.
JumpCrisscross
> obviously pointless and silly
Ironically, it’s the same language policing that got the left in trouble. We have better things to do with our lives than keep a running tally of the right and wrong names for things.
dcrazy
The difference is that enough Alaskans had always called Mt. McKinley “Denali” that the State of Alaska petitioned the U.S. government to change the federal name in 1975.
Who asked to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico?
soerxpso
It's not the same language policing that got the left in trouble until you're worried about being fired from your job for calling it the Gulf of Mexico.
JumpCrisscross
> It's not the same language policing that got the left in trouble until you're worried about being fired from your job for calling it the Gulf of Mexico
Would you really feel confident in your job at X if you called it the Gulf of Mexico?
kenhwang
I see Gulf of America when it's zoomed in, but Gulf of Mexico when zoomed very out or very very in.
nope96
I see "Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)" when zoomed in all the way. "Gulf of America" when zoomed out.
stevage
Probably a caching issue
llacb47
Likely cached tiles either on your end or Google's servers
chrsw
Like another poster on this topic said, it's not pointless or silly. It's a demonstration of power.
CharlesW
As well as an example of the "flood the zone" strategy designed to overwhelm and distract.
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Hizonner
You misspelled "demonstration of small dick energy".
Dudelander
It's more or less a loyalty test. Are you going to use the correct term, or Trump's term. Which side are you on?
swah
I really enjoyed the "joke" the other day where some standup guy said that we have the tech now to make everyone happy: just show this part on Google Maps as China to this set of people and Taiwan to this other set of people etc etc
Eddy_Viscosity2
I think every country should call it "Gulf of country", in France they direct all map providers to call it the Gulf of France, in Australia, they call it the Gulf of Australia, and so on.
Sparyjerry
That's actually hilarious, but America also stands for North America and South America. Gulf of The United States doesn't quite ring the same.
ryandvm
Honestly, this would be the funniest possible outcome.
ChrisArchitect
Related:
Just searched Google Maps for Mt. Denali, Alaska only for it to return results for Mount McKinley immediately. Note I'm not really sure if that's anything to do with an executive order or that it was Alaskans wanting it called Denali while many elsewhere in the country incl at the Federal level called it McKinley.
cratermoon
Whatever you do, don't right click on the map and select "Report a data problem".
bee_rider
I mean this is all dumb chest thumping. But, doesn’t it make us look smaller to name the gulf after us?
When it was the Gulf of Mexico, it was named from our point of view. It was the gulf, among our many gulfs, that we share with Mexico. Now, by the same logic it is named from their point of view.
sparrish
It's not named after 'us'.
All those in America (South, North, Central) are called Americans.
I spent several years in Paraguay where I met a lot of South Americans.
Mexicans are North Americans and the 'Gulf of America' is more inclusive considering 1/2 of the land mass touching it belongs to the US.
gritspartan
Except, no part of Central nor South America touches the Gulf of Mexico. The only three countries which coasts on the Gulf are the US, Mexico, and Cuba. All of these are in North America, and I'm pretty the latter two are not going to go along with the idea.
danorama
I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that "inclusion" wasn't Trump's intent here.
egypturnash
Well that's Google Maps deleted off my phone then.
gritspartan
To be fair to Google, they are simply following a policy they've had since 2008. There is a similar issue with the Sea of Japan/East Sea.
jasperr1
Seems a little harsh. What app do you plan on switching to?
pabs3
OpenStreetMap? They don't show ocean names on the map, and didn't change the primary name of the GoM POI, but instead added the new name as an official en-US name (and the official name used by Poland too).
https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/gulf-of-america-gulf-o...
nickthegreek
Personally, I’ve been using Apple Maps for over 8 years without issue. I just checked the gulf, it’s of mexico and I am in the US.
ryandvm
I have bad news for you if you think Apple is not going to fall in line.
egypturnash
My phone's been having shit battery life lately so I've been keeping a paper map in my bag. Maybe I'll just go back to using that.
happytoexplain
I personally don't feel strongly enough to move off Google Maps, but, harsh? It's an app.
benatkin
I downgraded my apps for domains plan. I’m not sure it was inevitable, and even so, Google seemed to be in a rush to do it.
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nonrandomstring
I think the gulf of America is in Washington right now.
gazook89
I was wanting a graphic t shirt with a skull in be style of a topographic map, with the empty space between the ears labeled as the Gulf of America. Alas, I have art skills and didn’t want to fuss with midjourney for a result half way there only to realize I wasn’t ever goiing to pull the trigger.
tonymet
Washingtonians prefer we use Washington for the state and DC for the Federal District of Columbia.
PaulDavisThe1st
Are Washingtonians from the state or the district?
The real news here is that GNIS has been updated with the name. It doesn't seem that Google made an independent decision to change the name. Resistance to this change would really have to happen at the government level, not the tech level. Which really seems to be the point that's being made with this whole ordeal. It's a symbolic move to demonstrate to everyone that what they say goes and that the system isn't resisting their power.