Google announced that it will adhere to official U.S. government designations when updating the names of geographic features on its Maps platform. The company’s statement comes in response to recent executive orders by President Donald Trump to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America and to restore Mount McKinley as the official name of Denali, the highest peak in North America.
The company emphasized its longstanding policy of applying name changes only when they are reflected in government databases. Google Maps will implement updates based on changes made to the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), a federal database that maintains records of more than one million geographic locations across the United States.
“We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources,” Google stated in a post on X. “When that happens, we will update Google Maps in the U.S. quickly to show Mount McKinley and Gulf of America.”
Denali, a name long used by Alaska Natives, was officially recognized in 2015 when former President Barack Obama directed the Department of the Interior to revert the mountain’s name from McKinley to its original Indigenous name. The mountain had been named after President William McKinley in the late 19th century by a gold prospector. President Trump’s recent executive order restores the name Mount McKinley, citing presidential authority over domestic geographical names.
The Associated Press (AP) announced that it will continue to use the name Gulf of Mexico, citing the name’s 400-year history, while acknowledging that the Trump administration has renamed it Gulf of America. However, AP will adopt Mount McKinley in its reporting, as the mountain is entirely within the United States and subject to federal naming authority.
