Apple is in the process of renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and changes are already being made to the Apple Maps app. When searching in the Maps app for Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico name is shown or the name is blank, but tapping into the area shows the "Gulf of America" wording.
According to Bloomberg, Apple is rolling out the Maps change in the United States today, so the name should shift for most U.S. users in the near future. Apple plans to change the name for all users globally in the future.
Google this week also made good on its promise to adopt the new naming, and "Gulf of America" is now visible in both Google Maps and Waze.
Google and Apple use data from the U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) when naming world locations, and GNIS updated its database with the "Gulf of America" name change this week.
Google has explained that Maps users in the United States will see "Gulf of America" instead of "Gulf of Mexico," while users in Mexico will continue to see Gulf of Mexico. In the rest of the world, the name for the body of water between Mexico and Florida will continue to be named Gulf of Mexico, but Gulf of America is shown in parentheses below. Apple might adopt similar changes outside of the United States.
When U.S. President Donald Trump took office on January 20, one of his first orders was changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Other countries do not refer to the area as the Gulf of America and are not required to accept the U.S. name.
Trump also said that Alaskan mountain Denali was being renamed to Mt. McKinley, but Google Maps and Apple Maps have not yet made that change.
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