Lake Ontario to Lake America – who gets to decide what goes on maps?

Innisfree McKinnon, University of Wisconsin-Stout Polytechnic

On Aug. 27, 2026, President Donald Trump issued an executive order renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America,” claiming his administration had already “notified all of the various people you have to notify.”

The name change, which Ontario Premier Doug Ford had dismissed as rhetoric when it was first suggested, comes amid an escalating trade war with Canada.

Of course, this isn’t the first time Trump has renamed a location. In 2025 he issued an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America and return Alaska’s Denali, the tallest peak in the country, to being called Mount McKinley.

While for some such renaming might seem less important than the big problems the country faces, there is a formal process in the United States for renaming places, and that process is taken seriously.

Usually, so people don’t get confused, the government uses official, agreed-upon names. In the U.S., place names are standardized by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, which is part of the U.S. Geological Survey, the agency in charge of making maps.

In his previous executive order, Trump asked the Board on Geographic Names “to honor the contributions of visionary and patriotic Americans” and change its policies and procedures to reflect that.

Usually, renaming a place starts locally. The people in the state or county propose a name change and gather support. The process in each state is different.

How to change a place name

In 2018, Minnesota changed the name of a large lake in Minneapolis to Bde Maka Ska, which the Minneapolis Park Board described as “a Dakota name for the lake that has been passed down in oral history for many years.”

The board voted to change the name and took its request to the county commissioners. When the county agreed, the request was then sent to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, which made it official for Minnesota. Then, the state of Minnesota sent the request to the Board on Geographic Names, which made it official for the entire U.S.

It’s a lot of paperwork for something so seemingly minor, but people get passionate about place names. It took 40 years to rename Denali from the name established in the late 19th century, Mount McKinley.

The state of Alaska requested the name change in 1975, but the Board on Geographic Names didn’t take action. Members of the Ohio congressional delegation – President William McKinley was from Ohio – objected over many years to requests to rename the mountain, and the board did not act on those requests.

The president appoints the secretary of the Interior Department. The secretary works with the heads of related agencies to appoint the Board on Geographic Names. Committee policy states, “Input from State geographic names authorities, land management agencies, local governments, and Tribal Governments are actively pursued.”

In 2015, President Barack Obama named a new leader for the Department of the Interior, Sally Jewell. Just as Obama made a trip to Alaska in late August 2015, Jewell declared the name change official under a law that allows the secretary of the Interior to change a name if the board doesn’t act on the proposal in a “reasonable” amount of time.

“This name change recognizes the sacred status of Denali to many Alaska Natives,” Jewell said. “The name Denali has been official for use by the State of Alaska since 1975, but even more importantly, the mountain has been known as Denali for generations. With our own sense of reverence for this place, we are officially renaming the mountain Denali in recognition of the traditions of Alaska Natives and the strong support of the people of Alaska.”

If someone objects to a name change, they could ask the courts to rule on whether the name change was made legally. Going back to Bde Maka Ska, some people objected to changing the name from Lake Calhoun, so they took the state natural resources agency to court. Eventually, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that the name change was done correctly.

How not to change a place name

Renaming the Gulf of Mexico is a different kind of case, however, from renaming a geographic place within U.S. borders.

The gulf is not within the territorial United States. On the coast, the first 12 miles from shore are considered part of that country, but outside of that is international waters.

Though the Board on Geographic Names has changed the name to Gulf of America on official U.S. maps, and even if it approves the name change of Lake Ontario, there is no international board in charge of place names. Each country decides what to call places. And there is no official way for the U.S. to make other countries change the names on their maps. It’s possible, however, that the U.S. could formally ask other countries to change a name or even impose sanctions against countries that don’t comply.

Now that the names have been changed in the U.S., the government uses them in official documents, signage and maps. As for all the people and companies in the world that make maps, they usually use the official names.

Today, widely used online maps, including Google Maps, vary the display of place names based on the location from which you are viewing the map. If you view Google Maps from the U.S., you will see the name Gulf of America displayed; from Mexico, you will see the more traditional Gulf of Mexico.

Google and other mapping companies also do this with disputed borders. In fact, you can manually adjust your settings to show the map as if you were viewing it from another country.

This is an updated version of a story that was first published on Jan. 24, 2025.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.