Google announced that once Donald Trump’s intention to rename the locations of the Gulf of Mexico and Mount Denali becomes official, American users of Google Maps will see the locations under the names “Gulf of America” and “Mount McKinley.”

In a related post on X on Monday, Google stated that it follows “a long-standing practice of adopting changes to location names when they are updated by official government sources.”

When will the names change on Google Maps?

The Trump administration announced on January 24 that it has already renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. On his first day in the Oval Office, Donald Trump signed executive orders to rename both the gulf and the mountain in Alaska.

The U.S. Department of the Interior stated last week that it is working on implementing the relevant executive order, although official government maps have not yet been updated. Google clarified that as soon as the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is updated, the company will immediately change the names in its navigation service.

Will the changes appear for all users?

Google also added that “when official names differ from country to country, Maps users see the official name applicable in their own country [where the disputed location is situated]. All other users around the world see both names. The same will happen in this case.”

Thus, users in the U.S. will see the name “Gulf of America,” users in Mexico will continue to see “Gulf of Mexico,” and users in the rest of the world will see both names, with one of them placed in parentheses. While Google has not yet clarified which name will be in parentheses, The New York Times cites “two people familiar with the company’s plans” who stated that “Gulf of Mexico” will be listed first.

DW reached out to Google for a comment on the matter.

What policy does Google Maps follow for disputed names?

Google Maps is by far the most popular mapping and navigation application, with approximately 1 billion active users per month.

As a result, the application has frequently been called upon to take a stance in cases of international disputes over various locations, whether these concern names or territorial delineations for political or geographical reasons.

As Google states in its latest announcement, the application uses different names for the same locations, depending on the location of the user.

A similar issue arose in the past with the Persian or Arabian Gulf, where Iran prefers the first name while Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries refer to it by the second name.

In 2012, Iran threatened to sue Google because the company had not provided a name for the Gulf on Maps. “If Google does not correct its mistake as soon as possible, we will file an official complaint against the company,” stated Iran’s then-Foreign Minister Ramin Mehmanparast.

Google rejected the accusations, emphasizing that it had never assigned any name to the Gulf in the application. Today, the company displays both names, which appear differently depending on the user’s location.

What about border disputes?

At the same time, many border disputes exist worldwide, which are obviously much more intense than those concerning place names.

Regarding territorial disputes, Google states that “state borders internationally are displayed differently depending on the political status of the respective borders.” International borders “that are not disputed, such as those between the U.S. and Canada, are shown with dark gray lines. Temporary borders established by treaties or lacking official status are shown with dashed gray lines.” Finally, “disputed borders, where the involved parties do not agree on specific boundary lines, are also shown with dashed gray lines.”

In 2014, six weeks after Russia’s invasion of Crimea, Google Maps displayed Crimea as Russian territory for Russian users, as Ukrainian territory for Ukrainian users, and with dashed lines for users in other countries.

Today, a user in Germany still sees a dashed gray line separating Ukraine from Crimea. However, regarding the four regions of Ukraine that Russia occupied after its 2022 invasion—Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia—Google Maps continues to present them as Ukrainian territory, something that was confirmed just a few days ago by a Google Maps user from Russia, according to DW.