US President Donald Trump has asked Apple to change the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America” on its Maps platform, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said, citing efforts to carry out the president’s executive order on the renamed Great Lake.
Burgum told Fox Business’s Mornings with Maria on Monday that Trump had contacted Apple directly. “I’m sure we may be seeing that change coming up soon,” he said, adding that the president had reached out to the company.
Apple Maps currently shows the lake as Lake Ontario for users outside the US, where the border of the Great Lake touches Ontario and the state of New York. The BBC contacted Apple for comment.
Trump Executive Order
On Thursday, Trump signed an executive order directing the administration to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America. The order follows the collapse of trade negotiations between Canada and the US.
The instruction includes steps to update official US geographic records, including the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), the government database used for mapping and place names. Burgum is directed to take “all appropriate actions” to implement the change.
Google And Other Map Services
Google switched the name for its US-based users over the weekend in order to comply with GNIS, according to a statement it issued on Saturday. Google said Canada-based users would continue to see Lake Ontario, and that outside the US the lake would be shown as “Lake Ontario (Lake America)”.
Other mapping services have not aligned uniformly. MapQuest, a US free web mapping service launched in 1996, said on Friday that “we’re not changing it” in a short Facebook post. The service also introduced a tool allowing users to change the lake name to any option of their choosing and share the results.
After MapQuest announced that it would not change the name, the app moved to the top of the most-downloaded free applications on the Apple App Store in Canada as of Monday morning.
Canada Pushback
The renaming has drawn pushback in Canada. On Sunday, Hydro One, an electricity utility company based in Toronto, apologised after its map displayed “Lake America”.
Hydro One said the name appeared because it was using a third-party mapping service. “We are working with our vendor to correct the issue as quickly as possible and restore the proper geographic reference,” the company said in a post on X. “We regret the error and apologise for any confusion it has caused.”
Other Ontario-based agencies also showed “Lake America” briefly, including Hydro Ottawa and the Liquor Board of Ontario.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford marked the dispute on Saturday by placing a large sign by the lakeshore reading “Lake Ontario Now and Always” in both English and French. Ford later told American TV host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday: “No one’s going to call it Lake of America. It’s been Lake Ontario for hundreds of years. It’s going to continue being Lake Ontario.”
Historical Names
The Great Lakes names reflect Indigenous languages, with four of the five lakes named Ontario, Huron, Michigan and Erie originating from Indigenous words.
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1 September 2026
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