Google Maps confirms its renaming the Gulf of Mexico, but for only some users

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Google has responded to the recent declaration by President Trump that the Gulf of Mexico will be renamed to the Gulf of America.

One of the first things President Trump did once he entered office was to declare the Gulf of Mexico was to be renamed to the Gulf of America, and now Google has announced it will comply with Trump's new naming scheme as the search conglomerate states it will abide by official government sources for all its naming of locations, as it has done in the past. Google took to X, where it wrote that it had received many questions regarding the name change, and that it has a "longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources."

Moreover, Google explained it uses the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) as its source for naming locations, which is the US government's official source for geographic names. Trump's executive order gives a 30-day deadline for the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, along with the renaming of Denali to Mount McKinley. Google states once the change has been lodged in the GNIS the change will be reflected in Google Maps. However, there's a caveat.

Google writes it's also had a longstanding practice of working with both countries that are in disagreement of the naming of a location, and the company does this by displaying the official local name of the location to Maps users and then both names to "everyone in the rest of the world." In the instance of the Gulf of Mexico renaming, Google writes "That applies here too".