Apple has renamed Lake Ontario as “Lake America” on its Maps service for users in the United States, following an order from US President Donald Trump amid Washington’s trade spat with Canada.
While US-based users will now see the new designation, users in Canada will continue to see “Lake Ontario” displayed, reports BBC.
Tariffs and collapsed trade talks
Apple’s move follows an executive order signed by President Trump after trade talks between the neighbouring countries collapsed late last month.
Following the breakdown of negotiations, Washington imposed new 50 per cent tariffs on $20 billion (£14.8 billion; C$28 billion) worth of Canadian goods.
Canada has retaliated against the levies, saying it will implement “dollar for dollar” counter-tariffs.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s administration had walked away from the trade negotiations over what his office described as “unacceptable demands”.
Carney urged the Trump administration to “start being serious” and stop trying to be tough before discussions between the two sides can restart.
Executive order and digital pressure
Trump’s executive order gives the US Department of the Interior 30 days to update the name change with the Geographic Names Information Service, the official database of place names in the country.
According to US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Apple was specifically urged by Trump to rename Lake Ontario on its Maps platform to comply with the executive order.
The president has also posted several AI-generated videos on social media, including a clip showing him kicking over a “Lake Ontario” sign and replacing it with another reading, “Welcome to Lake America”.
Resistance on the ground and online
At the lake itself, Canada has installed a new sign bearing the words: “Lake Ontario. Now and Always”.
“Just in case President Trump or anyone else forgets, we’ve set up this sign to remind them, it’s Lake Ontario, now and forever,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said.
Lake Ontario, the smallest of the Great Lakes, lies between the Canadian province of Ontario and the US state of New York.
The names of four of the five Great Lakes — Ontario, Huron, Michigan and Erie — originate from Indigenous words, while Lake Superior was named after an anglicised French word.
Not all map providers have adopted the new name.
MapQuest, a free web mapping service, said “we’re not changing it” in a short Facebook post on Friday. Following the announcement, the platform climbed to the top of the most-downloaded free applications on the Canadian Apple App Store earlier this week.
Google follows suit amid backlash
Rival technology giant Google also made a similar switch for its US users in recent days, leading to backlash on social media.
In a blog post last week, Google said it had changed the name on its Maps service for US-based users to “reflect name changes in official government sources”.
As a result, users in the US will see “Lake America”, while those in Canada will see “Lake Ontario”.
This is not the first time technology companies have altered map labels under pressure. In 2025, Google made a similar decision to re-designate the Gulf of Mexico after President Trump declared it would be called the Gulf of America.
Google was subsequently sued by Mexico over allegations that it ignored the country’s requests not to rename the Gulf for US users.
Apple also changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America on its Maps service for users in the US.
