Overview
- President Trump signed an executive order on Aug. 27 directing the Interior Department and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to change the federal entry for Lake Ontario to “Lake America.”
- The U.S. Geographic Names Information System was updated and Google Maps and Apple Maps began showing “Lake America” to users in the United States based on that federal record.
- MapQuest publicly refused to adopt the new name, posted its stance on X, and saw a large surge in downloads that pushed the app to No. 1 on the U.S. App Store.
- Market trackers and MapQuest gave differing install figures, with Sensor Tower estimating about 632,000 U.S. downloads and MapQuest reporting more than 1.5 million installs across the U.S. and Canada.
- Canadian provincial leaders and Indigenous authorities continue to call it Lake Ontario, underscoring that the U.S. designation applies only to U.S. federal usage and that platform policy and consumer choice shape what appears on digital maps.