Gulf of America: How Google handles controversial geography

Google says it will display the names "Gulf of America" and "Mount McKinley" to the US users of its Google Maps service if and when US President Donald Trump's pledge to rename the locations becomes official.

Trump said in his inauguration speech on January 20 that he planned to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and restore the name Mount McKinley to North America's highest peak, Denali. The mountain has been the subject of a long-running naming dispute.

Google said in a post on X on Monday that it had a "longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources," referring to the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).

"When that happens, we will update Google Maps in the US quickly to show Mount McKinley and Gulf of America.

"When will they be renamed on Google Maps?
The Trump Administration said on January 24 that it had already renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Trump signed executive orders on his first day in office to rename both the gulf and the Alaskan mountain.


The US Department of the Interior said last week that it was working on implementing the executive order but that official government maps had not yet been updated. The aforementioned GNIS, part of the US Geological Survey, carries out that process.

Google's statement suggests that as soon as the GNIS changes the names, their navigation service will be immediately updated.

Will all users see the change?
In its statement, Google added that "when official names vary between countries, Maps users see their official local name. Everyone in the rest of the world sees both names. That applies here, too."That means Google Maps users in the United States will see the new "Gulf of America" name, while users in Mexico will continue to see "Gulf of Mexico."

Users elsewhere in the world will see both names, with one in brackets. Google has not commented on the order in which the two names will be displayed to other users worldwide, although The New York Times quoted "two people with knowledge of the company's plans" as saying Gulf of Mexico would come first.

DW has reached out to Google for comment.

How does Google Maps generally deal with disputed place names?
Google Maps is by far the world's most used navigation and mapping app, with an estimated 1 billion active monthly users.

That status means it has often been involved in political and geographical disputes, with naming and boundary issues typically central to disputes between countries.

As Google says in its latest statement, when it comes to naming disputes, it uses different names to refer to the same places, emphasizing the user's location.

One significant issue also involved a body of water known as a gulf, in this case, the water between Saudi Arabia and Iran, known as the Persian Gulf or Arabian Gulf. Iran calls it the Persian Gulf, whereas Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries refer to it as the Arabian Gulf.

In 2012, Iran threatened to sue Google because it did not label the body of water on its Maps service. "If Google does not correct its mistake as soon as possible, we will file an official complaint against Google," said then-Iranian Foreign Minister Ramin Mehmanparast at the time.

Google rejected the criticism, saying it had never labeled the body of water. Now, in keeping with its stated policy, Google displays both names, with users in Arab countries near the water seeing it labeled as the Arabian Gulf and users in Iran seeing it displayed as the Persian Gulf.

What about borders?
Disputes over borders are typically even more fractious than over names. There are scores of ongoing territorial disputes all across the world.

In a statement posted on its support page, Google says, "International country borders are displayed in different styles according to the political status of the border.

"Undisputed international boundaries, like the one between the United States and Canada, are shown as a solid gray line. Treaty and provisional boundaries, which are temporary, are displayed as a dashed gray line.

"Disputed boundaries are displayed as a dashed gray line. The places involved don't agree on a boundary.

"Back in 2014, six weeks after Russia invaded Crimea, Google Maps began displaying Crimea as Russian territory to Russian users, continued displaying it as Ukrainian territory to Ukrainian users, and used the dashed gray line mentioned above to show the boundary to users in other countries.

Today, a user in Germany can still see the dashed gray line separating Ukraine from Crimea. However, the four regions of Ukraine that Russia unilaterally annexed after its full-scale invasion in 2022 — Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts — are still displayed as Ukrainian territory.

One Russia-based user also confirmed to DW that, as of January 27, 2025, those four regions are still displayed on Google Maps as part of Ukrainian territory.