The Daily Mail reports that "Google Maps caves to Trump as it renames Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America," adding:
The change will be visible in the U.S. once it is officially updated in the U.S. Geographic Names System, Google said in an X post on Monday.
But the name will still remain Gulf of Mexico on Google in Mexico. Outside of the two countries, users will see both names on Google Maps.
The article then goes on to report on the name change to Mt. McKinley in Alaska before quoting experts on how the change of name to the Gulf will likely be ignored internationally. But I don't see why it should be ignored. For instance, I just recently read an article from Down To Earth explaining that the term "America" belongs to all who live in North and South America. If that is the case, it is obviously racist for anyone to insist that the Gulf be named after Mexico while ignoring the many other countries that border the Gulf.
I also find it hard to believe that tradition alone will dictate the name of the Gulf. It certainly hasn't played out that way in other cases. For instance:
- Just over the last few years Turkey has become Türkiye on maps and in news articles and other reports.
- In 1995 the city of Bombay was renamed Mumbai and the change quickly implemented across the globe.
- The Gulf of California is frequently shown as the Sea of Cortez on maps or referred to as such.
- And, of course, since the U.S. decided to back Ukraine against Russia, we have seen the sudden renaming and respelling of long used names in the region, such as Kiev being changed to Kyiv.
Winning!
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