Google updates maps to display Lake Ontario as Lake America in U.S.

Tech giant said it replaced name after it was changed in U.S. government database

Users in Canada will still see it displayed as Lake Ontario on Google Maps, though the search engine will pull up Lake America if users enter that name in their query.

The search giant said in a Saturday post on its corporate website that it made the change because the U.S. government’s geographic names database has formally renamed the lake.

Users outside Canada and the United States will see both names, Google’s post said.

“It’s official! LAKE AMERICA on Google Maps,” White House communications director Steven Cheung posted on the social media website X on Sunday.

Appearing on ABC’s This Week program on Sunday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said the name change won’t stick, despite Trump signing the executive order on Thursday.

“It was like something out of Saturday Night Live when [Trump] signed a document saying change it to Lake America,” Ford said.

“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.”

On Saturday, Ford unveiled a large sign in Winona, Ont., a small community in the eastern part of Hamilton, that says, “Lake Ontario, now and always.”

‘Lake Ontario Now and Always’: Ford unveils new sign

Also on Saturday, Trump posted a video rendered by artificial intelligence where he replaces a Lake Ontario sign with another that reads “Welcome to Lake America,” then dances to the YCMA song by the Village People.

Prime Minister Mark Carney responded to Trump’s bid to rename the lake in a social media post on Thursday. Carney said Canadians know Lake Ontario will always be known by its original name, “then, now and always.”

Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes, is located between Ontario and New York. The Canadian province is named after the lake.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said after Trump signed his order that her state won’t call it Lake America.

Tensions between the two countries have escalated since trade talks fell apart on Aug. 21.

Both countries have accused each other of implementing last-minute changes to a proposed interim trade deal.

On Tuesday, the federal government unveiled upwards of $27 billion in retaliatory measures, set to kick in on Sept. 8, in response to new U.S. tariffs.

Trump first threatened to rename the body of water during an escalating war of words with Ontario’s premier.

Ford had called the president a “bully” and a “loser” on Aug. 24, while Trump said the premier was a “less charismatic” and less “intelligent” version of his late brother Rob Ford.

Doug Ford softens trade war message on U.S. TV

A day after hurling insults at U.S. President Donald Trump, Ontario Premier Doug Ford took a more measured approach while discussing the trade war during appearances on American TV. Meanwhile, Canadian officials rebuffed Trump’s threat to change Lake Ontario’s name to Lake America.

The premier said during his ABC appearance on Sunday that things “got heated” between Trump and himself, but “you’ve eventually got to stand up to someone who just continuously attacks our country and insults our country.”

“It’s unfortunate that he stoops down to that level and unfortunately I did that day,” Ford said, adding he wants to see both sides return their focus to advancing a mutually beneficial free-trade deal.

Trump signed a similar executive order last year to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

The orders apply only to U.S. federal documents and geographic services, but some online map services have since called it the Gulf of America. Most major news organizations in the U.S. and internationally continue to call it the Gulf of Mexico. — The Canadian Press