The tech giant announced it would keep the name Lake Ontario for Canadian users, the change reflecting a decision by the U.S. government agency.
Google has renamed Lake Ontario to American Lakes on its map of the United States after US President Donald Trump ordered the renaming of bodies of water amid escalating trade tensions with Canada.
The tech giant said in a statement Saturday that the lake’s name will be updated for users in the United States, but will still appear as Canada’s Lake Ontario. People outside the US and Canada will see both names.
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Google said the decision reflects changes made by the National Geographic Name Information System (GNIS).
“These updates follow our long-standing policy regarding waters with different names in different countries and are starting to roll out now,” the company added.
Users in the US began reporting the update on Sunday.
Google followed suit last year when President Trump unilaterally renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
Apple Maps, which followed President Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, still showed the lake as Lake Ontario for users in the United States as of Sunday.
The Trump administration on Thursday renamed a lake between the Canadian province of Ontario and the US state of New York, calling it an insult to Canada.
The US president had threatened to rename the lake in retaliation against Canada. Earlier this month, President Trump imposed 50% tariffs on some Canadian products after the two countries failed to reach a trade deal. Canada retaliated with a similar levy.
On Wednesday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney cited the Indigenous roots of the name Ontario.
“The name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word ontario, which aptly means ‘the lake is beautiful, the lake is big,'” he wrote in a social media post. “The name is more than 400 years old and predates the Declaration of Independence of the Confederation of Canada and the United States.”
Carney added that while the U.S. is changing trade relations, foreign policy and the names of bodies of water, “naming the real thing means calling it Lake Ontario then, now, and forevermore.”
Over the past few days, President Trump has shared several social media posts celebrating the name change.
On Saturday, he shared an AI-generated video showing a flock of Canada geese with blond combs patrolling Lake America with machine guns. The post ends with a duck firing a rifle in the air.
Trump’s critics ridiculed the policy, arguing that the United States was focusing on trivial issues rather than addressing the real problems facing the country, such as the rising cost of living.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Sunday that President Trump’s order to rename the lake came out of the Canadian-created and produced American comedy show “Saturday Night Live.”
“Nobody would call this Lakes of America. It’s been Lake Ontario for hundreds of years, and it’s always going to be Lake Ontario,” Ford told ABC News.
The controversy over the lake’s name came after the latest episode of the trade war between the United States and Canada.
Since returning to the White House last year, President Trump has used tariffs to raise the price of foreign imports in an effort to correct what he sees as an unfair imbalance with Washington’s trading partners.
Canada has historically been one of the United States’ closest allies. But Canada, the third-largest exporter to the United States, has been one of the most persistent targets of President Trump’s trade war.
Beyond trade issues, President Trump has repeatedly questioned Canada’s status as a sovereign nation.
In the first months of his second term, Trump nominated then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as governor, suggesting he was leading a U.S. state rather than an independent country.
Mr. Carney replaced Mr. Trudeau in March 2025 with a platform focused on pushing back against Mr. Trump and helping Canada adapt to changes in its relationship with the United States.
