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Trump has 'reached out' to Apple about renaming Lake Ontario on its maps
U.S. President Donald Trump has contacted Apple about changing Lake Ontario’s name to “Lake America” on its maps app, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said on Monday.
In an interview on Fox Business’ Mornings with Maria program, Burgum said: “The president reached out to Apple directly, so I’m sure that we may be seeing that change coming up soon to Lake America.”
National Post has reached out to Apple for comment.
It comes after the “Lake America” label was adopted by Google Maps in the U.S. over the weekend. The company said in a post on its corporate website that the change was made after the U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) had formally renamed the lake.
Google updates its maps to reflect official government sources, the company said, adding: “These updates follow our long-standing policy for bodies of water with names that vary from country to country.”
Users in Canada will still see the lake’s name displayed as Lake Ontario on Google Maps, while people elsewhere in the world will see both names.
However, this led to maps on websites for some Canadian organizations — including Metrolinx, Hydro One and LCBO — briefly displaying the “Lake America” name, because they pull map data directly from Google Maps.
“We are aware that Lake Ontario is being incorrectly labeled on our outage map,” Hydro One wrote in a statement on X. “The issue originates from a third-party mapping service. We are working with our vendor to correct the issue as quickly as possible.”
By Monday morning, the labels had been reverted to Lake Ontario.
We are aware that Lake Ontario is being incorrectly labeled on our outage map. The issue originates from a third-party mapping service. We are working with our vendor to correct the issue as quickly as possible and restore the proper geographic reference. We regret the error and…
— Hydro One (@HydroOne) August 30, 2026
Trump signed the executive order to rename the lake on Thursday , which also ordered the Department of the Interior to update maps and databases with the name “Lake America.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney responded to Trump’s actions shortly after the executive order was signed, explaining on social media that “the name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, means ‘the lake is beautiful, the lake is big’.”
He added that the name is more than 400 years old and predates both Canadian Confederation and the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
“We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms,” he wrote. “Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario — then, now and always.”
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre echoed Carney’s sentiment in his own post on X , adding that the lake is not Trump’s “to rename on a whim.”
The name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, means “the lake is beautiful, the lake is big”.The name is more than 400 years old, predating both the Confederation of Canada and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America.…
— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) August 27, 2026
U.S. politicians have also condemned Trump’s executive order, including former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who wrote, “It’s Lake Ontario,” in a post on X , and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who said , “The American people don’t want to rename Lake Ontario Lake America.”
Meanwhile, Trump spent the weekend posting about Canada on Truth Social, including claiming that the U.S. loses $60 billion a year to Canada, that Canada is “ripping off” the U.S. and suggesting that all Canadian companies doing business with America should move to the U.S.
He also shared a screenshot of the new “Lake America” name on Google Maps and an AI video of himself replacing a “Welcome to Lake Ontario” sign with one that reads “Welcome to Lake America” underneath a U.S. flag.
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