Donald Trump has signed a slew of executive orders since taking over the White House. One of those orders is renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The change is applied in the US's Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), and map applications are now required to follow Trump's order in using the Gulf of America naming.
This week, Google Maps took the initiative and began using the Gulf of America instead of the Gulf of Mexico. As per a report by Bloomberg, Apple is now taking the same path by showing Apple Maps users the Gulf of America name. While the change is now only visible to US-based users, the outlet says Apple "would soon roll out the shift for all users globally."
While Apple Maps still shows the name of the Gulf of Mexico on the map itself, once you tap the details, you can see that the name has been replaced with the name of the Gulf of America. Since map apps are required to use the data found on GNIS, the renaming move doesn't come as a surprise.
In addition to Google and Apple, Microsoft has also renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in Bing Maps. In a statement, a company's spokesperson said, "In accordance with established product policies, we are updating Bing Maps to reflect the Geographic Names Information System's nomenclature in the United States, which includes changing the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in the US," (via CNET).
The change to the map application is mainly limited to US-based users for now, but Big Tech behind these apps will globally roll out the new name in the coming months. It remains to be seen how non-US citizens, especially Mexican citizens, would react to it. Some users on social media have already raised their voices to oppose the change.
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