Google Maps has triggered controversy by showing Lake Ontario as “Lake America” for users in the United States while keeping its traditional name in Canada, amid escalating tensions between the two countries.
Sailboats are seen in the distance on Lake Ontario, from Toronto, Ontario, on August 27, 2026. US President Donald Trump announced that he is renaming Lake Ontario — a large body of water shared by the United States and Canada — “Lake America.” Trump signed an order in the White House in a move that comes amid a spiraling trade war between the world’s largest economy and its northern neighbor. (Photo by Cole Burston / AFP)
Google redesignated Lake Ontario as “Lake America” on maps seen by US users Sunday after President Donald Trump announced he was renaming the body of water, with a Canadian official slamming the cross-border tensions as “absolutely backwards.”
People in Canada will still see Lake Ontario, the Indigenous-rooted name used for the lake since the 17th century, on their devices and computers, the US-based tech giant said.
The shock nomenclatural spat erupted as the latest element of Trump’s “America First” narrative, with longtime allies the United States and Canada ramping up a trade war that has seen Washington and Ottawa slap tit-for-tat tariffs on each other.
Apple’s Maps app that comes installed on all iPhones makes no mention of “Lake America” on its maps as of Sunday morning.
Google said it made its change in line with the US Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), the official federal 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.
The change mirrors Trump’s unilateral altering of the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in January 2025 — a move Mexico has also rejected.
Ontario is the smallest by surface area of the five Great Lakes, which straddle the Canada-US border between Ontario province and the US state of New York.
The province’s premier, Doug Ford, offered fresh criticism Sunday of the trade dispute and Trump’s lake name change.
“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.”
Ford also warned that while a trade war would harm both countries, “it’d be definitely devastating on the US” given that Canada has been by far the largest purchaser of US vehicles. Should those buys dry up, US auto factories would be hit hard.
“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.”
Canada and the US have a deeply interconnected auto manufacturing sector, and a sizeable portion of parts for US vehicles are made in Canada.
Trump himself waded in Sunday to say Americans “want to make our own cars.”
“Canada has been ripping us off for years — NO LONGER!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.
AFP
