Google Maps names Gulf of Mexico around

The US tech giant Google changed the Gulf of Mexico in its Google Maps online service on Monday for US users to “Golf of America”-and has thus followed the decree of US President Donald Trump. Users outside the USA would continue to see both the original and the new name, Google explained in a blog entry. This is so common in controversial place names.

Maps users in the USA is now displayed by the name “Golf of America”. Maps users in Mexico, on the other hand, would see the original name “Gulf of Mexico” on the map, said Google. All other users would “see both names”. Google said that the change corresponded to its politics to follow the official geographical names of the US government in the database Geographic Names Information System.

Trump had signed a decree immediately after taking office, which, among other things, provided for the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America and the Denali mountain in Mount McKinley. With the name change of Denali, Trump reversed the decision of former US President Barack Obama from 2015 to give the highest mountain of North America the name that Alaska’s indigenous people have been using for centuries.

From Mexico, Trump had harvested sarcasm for his decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico. Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum suggested that the United States could be renamed “Mexican America” ​​and referred to a card from the time before the confiscation of a third of Mexico by the United States in 1848.