Following pressure from President Donald Trump and a change to the GNIS, Apple Maps has been updated, renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America.
Apple Maps was drawn into the middle of a trade disagreement between the United States and Canada, by President Trump changing the name of one of the Great Lakes. After being contacted by Trump and nudged to do so, Apple has now updated Maps to update the name of Lake Ontario.
Users searching for Lake Ontario will now be greeted by a sight of "Lake America." There was a short in-between where searches for "Lake America" would show Lake Ontario on the map but Lake America in the search results.
The name update arrives after a formal change in the U.S. Geographic Names Information System. That has already triggered an update in Google Maps.
While Apple has been slower to make the change, it did get some encouragement from the White House. On August 31, U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Trump spoke to Apple about the name change.
Apple Maps and Google Maps aren't the only label-based battlegrounds over Lake Ontario. Doug Ford, Ontario's Premier, revealed a Lake Ontario sign near Grimsby, Ontario.
The change won't necessarily apply to all Apple Maps users, as the previous high-profile renaming of the Gulf of Mexico proves.
The January 2025 renaming, again under the direction of President Trump, the Gulf of Mexico became the Gulf of America. At that time, Apple was also reluctant to make the change, but eventually did.
However, what is visible to users varies depending on where they are in the world. In Mexico, it retained its original name, while other countries saw Gulf of Mexico with Gulf of America in parentheses.
It is still the early stages of the Lake America rollout in Apple's system, but it will probably make changes in a similar way to the Gulf of America updates.
