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GOOGLE HAS CONFIRMED that it will add a ‘Gulf of America’ label to the Gulf of Mexico on its Maps app following Donald Trump’s bid to rename the body of water.
Trump has been adamant on renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Trump signed an executive order about the name change hours after he returned to the White House, which has since been reflected in official US government communications.
The new name that Trump’s administration is using will now be shown on Google Maps for US users.
Outside of the US, Google users will see both Gulf of Mexico and Gulf of America listed at the spot on the map.
“We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources,” Google said in a statement on social media.
When that happens, it said, it will update Google Maps in the US “quickly” to show Gulf of America.
“Also longstanding practice: When official names vary between countries, Maps users see their official local name. Everyone in the rest of the world sees both names. That applies here too,” it said.
The gulf, which covers a surface area of more than 1.5 million square kilometres, is sandwiched between the southern coastline of the US and the northern coastline of Mexico, as well as Cuba to its east.
A US president has the authority to rename sites within the United States. However, the Gulf of Mexico “is a body of water that borders several countries and includes pockets of high seas”, deep-sea ecologist Andrew said Thaler, founder of Blackbeard Biologic Science and Environmental Advisors.
“There really isn’t any precedent for a US president renaming international geologic and oceanographic features,” he said, saying that an attempt to do so would be only “symbolic”.
Thaler called the move by Trump “very silly” and said it would likely be ignored by maritime professionals.
Trump also changed the US government’s official name for the Denali mountain in Alaska.
The Alaska Native Koyukon people have called the mountain by the name Denali for centuries.
Over the last 150 years, others have tried to rename it for political reasons, including the US naming it Mount McKinley in 1917 after former president William McKinley. The Obama administration officially restored its name to Denali in 2015 but Trump has now ordered it be changed again to McKinley.
Additional reporting by AFP
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