Summary
Google Maps will rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” for U.S. users following a U.S. government decision.
The U.S. Department of Interior recently announced the official name change, implemented by the Board on Geographic Names.
Google stated it updates names based on official government sources.
The name will remain “Gulf of Mexico” in Mexico and display both names elsewhere globally.
This change stems from an executive order by Trump, who also reversed the 2015 renaming of Alaska’s Denali to Mount McKinley.
The important part is “for US users”. The rest of the world does not care about Trumps childish tantrums.
Honestly, we don’t either.
Small dick energy
Stupid is as stupid does.
Well google maps can fuck right off, the cowards. What are everyone’s recommendations for alternatives?
Depends.
If you just want a map to find things, OsmAnd is good.
If you want to prepare hiking/biking trail maps and then download them for offline use, Alpi Maps is really nice.
If you want useful navigation that includes traffic data and gets the realistic arrival time close to correct, Magic Earth is really the only option (traffic time estimates depend on users agreeing to share their location data while using ME for navigation so that it can make traffic speed assessments - quality will depend on how many other ME users in your area have agreed to share their data).
All 3 ultimately depend on OpenStreetMap for their map data. If you use them, consider creating an account and contributing with a tool like StreetComplete.
If you want something that has locations of businesses &etc with accurate names, operating hours, contact information, pictures of the location, street view, user reviews… there are no alternatives.
OSM will rename the Gulf Of Mexico eventually as well, by policy. See towards the end of this long discussion thread: https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/gulf-of-america-gulf-of-mexico/124571/73
Alternatives
Referring to it’s proper name, the Gulf of Mexico
It’s just… No. I’ve used osmand for years and it’s the absolute worst. The interface is way too complicated to use and the search is absolutely useless. I can only use it for offline maps while hiking to see where I am.
That’s fair. For me none of the alternatives offer enough features to replace it. I often use it to highlight POIs of a type and all the different map views are great.
Organic maps on fdroid. Using open street maps and have a pretty good UI, and offline maps.
You can really tell how sheltered yanks are with this news.
This is pretty standard for Google maps. Names of locations change depending on what version of maps you use.
Google will use the official data from the government of whatever region it is, and the government Americans voted for changed the name.
No, we yanks are familiar with this policy. We just think capitulating to this performative nonsense is ridiculous.
But I want Google to stick it to bad orange man, Google should represent me not official data, Google is a Nazi company!!! 😭😭😭
Well, if that’s how it works, every country now needs to renames the US to something else on their maps. Whoever has the best name wins something - like, the Olympics or free membership to the UN.
Suggestions now open, I’ll start: “Little Girls Blouse”
United Bullies of America.
United Safe Spaces of Trumpistan
I already refer to the states as “dumbfuckistan” or “burgerland” to people I talk to IRL when I refer to the states and most people know where I’m talking about with little context. So that’s my suggestion.
Freedonia
North Mexico Or the United Stains
United States of Oligarchs
That’s a bit boring though. Maybe they could put out a call for sponsors every week, the winner gets to name it. We’d get names like:
- United States of Amazon
- X
- Murica
- iMerica (designed by Apple in California, assembled in China)
Which should drive home the point.
Would also help government funding.The United Oligarchs of America
Switched to Apple Maps a few months ago, just one more reason to never switch back.
Google has been doing this all along with other places, don’t suddenly get all up in arms when you guys clearly didn’t care before.
Explain?
Information on Google maps is different based on location. Most prominent examples are disputed borders like in Kashmir which are differently drawn in India and Pakistan.
Also pick your battles: with all the insane bullshit going on, naming of some body of water should be far down anyone’s priority list
Kind of expected, Google maps show you a different version depending of where you are, aligning with your government position.
I will start calling the US Mexico of the North
Google has sucked for a very long time. They’re greedy, monopolistic sociopaths that scrubbed “don’t be evil” from their principles pretty much the second there was a buck to be had from it.
It’s a shame they haven’t been broken up. If they had been, many of the Google Graveyard products would probably still be around.
Wave can stay dead though. I’m okay with that.
The majority of the Gulf is not owned by a nation. There are legal boundaries. The US cannot dictate the name. As usual, trump is an idiot.
But it can dictate how federal agencies refer to geographic regions.
A private company or private citizen can do as it sees fits.
Open Street Maps is a thing. Use it.
It’s also publicly editable and used to generate a bunch of other maps - even for government use. It would be a damned shame if people created burner accounts and started renaming things owned by Trump and Musk…
OSM also uses localized names for places. So there might be name changes happening there as well.
Not sure exactly how they do it for international names, they probably have a system, but if Trump starts renaming towns and states in the US like “State of Pu**ygrab”, “State of Hillaries-emails” or whatever, everyone has to adapt, in order to not be disrespectful of the people and culture of the united states as is making any kind of fun about these cultural and historic differences. People from outside just do not understand them and their need to validate their place in the world as deeply as the people living there.
OSM will also eventually change it. It’s the official name of the gulf in the US. Like it or not, that’s the reality. Just like how English maps show “Japan” written over the country called Nihon.
No, they won’t. They’ll introduce additional names, but the gulf itself will not be renamed.
https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/gulf-of-america-gulf-of-mexico/124571/102
I guess there’s multiple ways to address this. Google has the resources to easily serve different maps to each country, while showing multiple names is an easier strategy.
Any client could choose to prefer region-specific names, but it’s important to note that this is not the same as renaming the thing itself.
Organic maps is the one I use
I kind of get the whole 'Gulf of America’s, at least conceptionally, America is the continent yada yada yada, it’s fine, it’s silly but fine.
But the Mount McKinley stuff is really baffling to me. Afaik McKinley never even visited Alaska during his presidency, alaskans themselves tried to change the name since at least the 1980s and the only thing that stood in the way was Ohio, as McKinleys home state, blocking the name change, until in 2015 they eventually relented and the name was changed back to its original indigenous name.
Why would they change it arbitrarily again? I don’t understand? Is it just racism and it by chance happened during Obama’s presidency?
Why would they change it arbitrarily again? I don’t understand?
I firmly believe that Trump and friends are having a grand time trolling the world as petty revenge for losing 2020.
In other words, there is no reason other than they can do it and we can do nothing about it.
kind of get the whole 'Gulf of America’s, at least conceptionally, America is the continent…
Y’all know that’s not the argument :-)
Honestly, it’s the other way around for me. To be clear, Denali is a much better name than Mount McKinley for multiple reasons, but at least it’s our mountain and it was named Mount McKinley at one time.
Gulf of America is just a dumb power move that came out of nowhere, and it’s a body of water shared by multiple countries. It’s not like this is the only gulf named after only one country it touches out of a few - see also the Gulf of Oman and Gulf of Thailand, for example
If you consider the most petty possible explanation for any of these “actions,” you’ll always be at least partially, if not entirely, correct.
This is what we call “bitch behavior”.
It’s the Gulf of Mexico.
