The first-ever mapping website is adamant: its name will not change Lake Ontario to “Lake America” despite President Donald Trump’s executive order.
MapQuest’s X account shared a screenshot of the water body on Thursday, saying, “We’re not changing it.”
The post received more than 70,000 likes. None of the 24 messages on the account in July received more than two.
“Shocking to see you’re still alive,” Eric Trump responded. “I thought the iPhone 3 turned you off fifteen years ago.”
MapQuest calls itself “the OG of online mapping” in its X-bio. It was first launched in 1996 and was bought by AOL for $1.1 billion four years later, at the height of the dot-com boom.
However, by 2008 MapQuest fell behind Google Maps. It was sold in 2019 to System1, an online advertising company.
There has been no official word yet from Google or Apple on whether they will change the name of Lake Ontario on their mapping services.
MapQuest has also created a site that allows users to choose their own name for the body of water and generate a prank screenshot. The most liked answers included “Lake of Hormuz” and “Lake of the Gulf of Mexico.”
Trump’s ‘Lake America’ order is similar to the one he signed at the start of his term in January 2025. renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the ‘Gulf of America’.
At the time, MapQuest similarly released a tool that allowed users to take a screenshot with their own chosen name.
Google Maps and Apple Maps label the basin as “Gulf of America” for US users; however, international users will still see “Gulf of Mexico.”
Trump’s executive orders force federal agencies to use the new names, but not private companies or other entities.
The president wants to rename Lake Ontario because trade tensions between the US and Canada have flared up again.
It is the smallest of the Great Lakes and straddles the US-Canada border, with Toronto on the northern shore and New York State to the south. The word Ontario has indigenous origins and means ‘great lake’ or ‘beautiful water’.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney rejected Trump’s name change in an X-post late Thursday.
“Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario – then, now and always,” he wrote.
The row started last week when Canada withdrew from trade negotiations. Then on Saturday, Trump’s 50% Tariffs came into effect on some Canadian products ranging from whiskey and hockey sticks to dairy products, clothing and lumber. He has also threatened to impose tariffs on cars and steel.
Canada announced retaliatory tariffs of up to 50% on Tuesday, targeting key industries such as steel, dairy and agricultural machinery. They come into effect on September 8.
