If you’re in Trinidad and Tobago while your family is in the United States and Mexico, and you all search for the Gulf of Mexico on Google Maps, each of you will see different results.
For those in Trinidad and Tobago, Google has added the name ‘Gulf of America’ in parentheses next to ‘Gulf of Mexico’ in its Maps application.
Meanwhile, only users in the United States will see the Gulf of Mexico renamed as the Gulf of America, while users in Mexico will continue to see it as the Gulf of Mexico.
In a statement issued yesterday, Google said that it started implementing the change after the U.S. government updated the name on its official maps.
President Donald Trump ordered U.S. authorities to make the change to official maps in an executive order he signed on his first day in office.
“We’ve received a few questions about naming within Google Maps. We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources,” Google stated on a post on its X account on January 27.
During his flight to New Orleans on Sunday, Trump signed a proclamation declaring February 9 as “Gulf of America Day” while Air Force One flew over the body of water.
This is not This is not the first time Google has used different names for a single location on its maps.
For example, the body of water between Saudi Arabia and Iran—long at the center of a naming dispute—is labeled differently based on the user’s location.
In Iran, Google Maps displays it as the Persian Gulf (Arabian Gulf), while in nearby Arab countries, it appears as the Arabian Gulf.
