US President Donald Trump has demanded that Apple change the name of Lake Ontario to "Lake America" on its maps. The demand follows the collapse of trade negotiations between Canada and the US, and Trump signed an executive order on Thursday directing Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to take all necessary actions to rename the lake, including updating the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), the official US government map database.
Google said in a statement on Saturday that its maps will display "Lake America" for US users to comply with the GNIS, while users in Canada will continue to see "Lake Ontario". In the rest of the world, users will see the name displayed as "Lake Ontario (Lake America)". However, not all map providers are changing the name. MapQuest, an American free web mapping service launched in 1996, said in a short Facebook post on Friday that "we're not changing it". The platform also unveiled a tool that allows users to change the lake's name to any name they choose and share their creations.
After MapQuest announced it would not be changing the name of Lake Ontario, the app rose to the top of the most-downloaded free applications on the Apple App Store in Canada as of Monday morning. Ontario Premier Doug Ford unveiled a large sign by the lakeshore on Saturday that read "Lake Ontario Now and Always" in both English and French, Canada's official languages. "No one's going to call it Lake of America," Ford told American TV host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. "It's been Lake Ontario for hundreds of years. It's going to continue being Lake Ontario." The names of four of the Great Lakes - Ontario, Huron, Michigan and Erie - originate from indigenous words.