- Target:
- Google, apple, canadian MP and MPP's, Canadian and international media
- Region:
- Canada
Preamble: Background, History, and Evidence
On August 27, 2026, the President of the United States signed an executive order directing the U.S. Department of the Interior to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America" in federal records, effective once the change is processed through the U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) — a process that typically takes about 30 days. The order was signed amid an escalating trade dispute between the United States and Canada, including new U.S. tariffs of up to 50% on billions of dollars of Canadian goods, with the Canadian government committed to matching those tariffs dollar for dollar.
This is not the first such rename, but it is the first of its kind. In January 2025, the same administration renamed the Gulf of Mexico "Gulf of America" by executive order, and Google Maps and Apple Maps subsequently updated their U.S.-facing labels once the GNIS was formally updated, while retaining "Gulf of Mexico" for Mexican users. That case, along with the Sea of Japan/East Sea dispute and the Persian Gulf/Arabian Gulf dispute, established a workable precedent: each disputed body of water touches two countries at its outer edges, so a split label (one name per country of origin) is straightforward to display.
Lake Ontario is structurally different, and that difference matters. The Canada–U.S. border does not run along the edge of Lake Ontario — it runs directly through the middle of the lake itself. There is no precedent on Google Maps or Apple Maps for a single, undivided body of water carrying two official names depending on which shoreline a user stands on. Any attempt to apply the Gulf of America approach here creates a genuinely new cartographic and diplomatic problem that these companies have not previously had to solve.
The name predates both nations by centuries. "Ontario" derives from the Wendat (Huron) word Ontari'io, meaning "beautiful lake" or "great lake" — documented in use since at least the 1660s, and by some accounts since the early 1600s. This is more than 400 years before the Canadian Confederation of 1867 and more than 150 years before the U.S. Declaration of Independence of 1776. Renaming the lake by unilateral executive action erases Indigenous naming history that belongs to no single modern nation-state.
There is an existing international standard for exactly this situation. The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) has addressed shared-feature naming disputes directly: where countries sharing a geographic feature cannot agree on a common name, the name used by each country is accepted on international maps and publications, rather than one nation's name displacing the other's. This is the same standard already applied to the South China Sea (called the "Eastern Sea" in Vietnam and the "West Philippine Sea" in the Philippines) and the Persian Gulf (called the "Arabian Gulf" by neighboring Arab states). Google itself has previously acted on petitions in comparable disputes: in 2015, following a petition from the Philippine government, Google Maps removed a Chinese-language label from a contested feature in the South China Sea.
The economic relationship underlying this dispute affects ordinary people on both sides of the border. Canada and the United States share the longest undefended border in the world, deeply integrated supply chains in the auto, energy, and agricultural sectors, and shared management of Great Lakes infrastructure including the St. Lawrence Seaway. The tariff dispute that prompted this executive order is projected to raise costs for consumers and put jobs at risk in both countries — this is not a symbolic dispute alone, but a live economic one with consequences well beyond a name on a map.
What we are asking of Google and Apple. Neither company is bound by the executive order — it directs only U.S. federal government use of the name. Google and Apple make their own independent decisions about how to label disputed geography, and both have previously stated a preference for neutrality in geopolitical naming disputes. We ask both companies to apply that stated neutrality here: to retain "Lake Ontario" as the name displayed to all users, in recognition of the lake's shared binational status, its centuries-old Indigenous name, and the absence of any workable precedent for splitting a single, undivided body of water into two names.
Petition: Keep Lake Ontario's Name on Google Maps and Apple Maps
To: Google (Google Maps) and Apple (Apple Maps)
Our Ask:
We ask Google and Apple to retain the name "Lake Ontario" on their mapping platforms worldwide, and to reject any pressure to unilaterally relabel the lake as "Lake America" following a U.S. executive order signed on August 27, 2026.
Why This Matters:
On August 27, 2026, the U.S. president signed an executive order directing the U.S. Interior Department to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America" in federal records. That order carries legal weight only for U.S. federal government use — it has no authority over how the rest of the world, including private companies like Google and Apple, refer to the lake.
This is not a trivial cartography question. Lake Ontario sits on the international border between Canada and the United States — the border runs through the lake itself, not along its edge. A rename here isn't like past disputes (the Gulf of Mexico, the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Japan), where the water in question touches two countries at their outer edges. Any name split here would mean the same body of water carries two different official names depending on which shore you're standing on — an unprecedented and confusing situation with no historical analog on these platforms.
The name predates both countries. "Ontario" comes from the Wendat (Huron) word Ontari'io, meaning "beautiful lake" or "great lake" — a name in continuous use for over 400 years, long before the Canadian Confederation of 1867 or the U.S. Declaration of Independence of 1776. Overwriting it for political leverage in a trade dispute erases Indigenous naming history on both sides of the border — a history that belongs to no single nation and shouldn't be unilaterally rewritten by either one.
This dispute is not just symbolic — it has real economic consequences for people on both sides of the border. The renaming was announced in the context of an escalating tariff dispute, including 50% tariffs affecting billions of dollars in cross-border trade. Canada has signalled it will match U.S. tariffs dollar-for-dollar. The practical result: Canadian workers stand to lose jobs as export industries absorb the tariffs, Canadian consumers will pay more for goods and services, and American consumers and businesses will face higher prices and supply disruptions too, given how deeply intertwined the two economies are. This is not an abstract political gesture — it is a symptom of a trade conflict with consequences for ordinary working people in both countries.
Canada and the United States share one of the deepest, longest-standing relationships between any two nations on Earth — the world's longest undefended border, deeply integrated supply chains (especially in autos, energy, and agriculture), shared waterways and infrastructure like the St. Lawrence Seaway, generations of family and cultural ties across the border, and a history of mutual defense cooperation going back over a century. A symbolic renaming, driven by a trade dispute, put at risk a relationship built over two centuries.
What We're Asking Specifically:
1. Do not change the label "Lake Ontario" to "Lake America" on Google Maps or Apple Maps for any user, regardless of location.
2. If a locational-display policy is applied (as has been done for other disputed names), ensure it does not obscure or subordinate the name "Lake Ontario" for any user inside or outside the United States.
3. Publicly acknowledge the more-than-400-year Indigenous origin of the name "Ontario" as a reason for retaining it.
Maps shape how the world understands geography, sovereignty, and shared history. We ask Google and Apple not to let a single country's political dispute redraw a name that belongs to two nations and to the Indigenous peoples who named it first.
We, the undersigned, urge Google and Apple to keep the name Lake Ontario.
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The Keep Lake Ontario's Name on Google Maps and Apple Maps petition to Google, apple, canadian MP and MPP's, Canadian and international media was written by Lawrence D and is in the category International Affairs at GoPetition.