Google has redesignated Lake Ontario as “Lake America” on Google Maps for users in the United States, following US President Donald Trump’s decision to rename the body of water.
The change appeared on US users’ maps on Sunday, while people in Canada will continue to see the name Lake Ontario, the Indigenous-rooted name that has been used since the 17th century, reports AFP.
Google said it made the change to align with the US Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), the federal government’s official database for geographic names.
“Since we update Google Maps to reflect name changes in official government sources, which is GNIS for the US, 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 on its blog.
Apple, meanwhile, continued to display Lake Ontario on its Maps app, which comes pre-installed on iPhones in the US as of Sunday.
The naming dispute has added another point of tension between the US and Canada as the two longstanding allies intensify a trade war, with both countries imposing tariffs on each other.
Trump renewed his criticism of Canada on Sunday, targeting the auto industry despite the deeply integrated manufacturing networks between the two countries and the significant number of Canadian-made parts used in vehicles assembled in the US.
“I don’t want Canadian cars, I don’t want Canadian parts, I don’t want Canadian anything,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.
The latest move echoes Trump’s unilateral renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America in January 2025, a decision Mexico has also rejected.
Lake Ontario is the smallest of the five Great Lakes by surface area. It lies along the Canada-US border between Ontario province and New York state.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford criticised both the lake renaming and the escalating trade dispute on Sunday.
“It’s absolutely backwards. It was like something out of (US comedy TV show) ‘Saturday Night Live’ when he signed a document saying — changed to ‘Lake America.’ No one’s going to call it Lake of America,” Ford told ABC talk show “This Week.”
“It’s just so disappointing,” he said.
Ford warned that a prolonged trade war would hurt both countries but argued that the impact would be particularly severe for the US because Canada has long been the biggest buyer of American vehicles. A decline in Canadian purchases, he said, would put US car factories under significant pressure.
“A tariff on Canada is nothing more than a tax on American people,” he said. “It’s probably the worst move you could ever do.”
Trump, meanwhile, pointed to the performance of a Ford Motor Company plant in the Detroit area, which has been working overtime to assemble F-150 pickup trucks.
“They’ve been ripping us off for decades, and it’s going to stop,” he said of Canada.
However, many F-150 engines are produced across the border in Windsor, Ontario. Trump has threatened to double tariffs on such automotive parts to 50 percent, along with tariffs on other Canadian products.
Canada has responded with counter-tariffs ranging from 15 to 50 percent on US goods, further escalating the trade dispute between the historically close allies.
