After taking office, President Trump signed an executive order requiring many landmarks, including the Gulf of Mexico, to change their names, but Apple Maps remained unchanged. That's why it's not that simple. Maps are interesting things. We have long used a map designed in 1569 to learn global geography, but it inaccurately showed that North America and Europe were much larger than they should be.
Nearly five hundred years later, we are beginning to use newer models that accurately show the size of the continents. I ask this question simply because maps are complex and changing the maps we rely on takes a lot of time and effort.
So when President Trump, back in the White House, signed an executive order changing the names of landmarks, it should be easy to understand that things are not that simple. Even if "Bight of America" was standardized by the United States Board of Geographic Names (BGN), it would only be authorized for federal use in the United States. Executive orders from the White House can only be issued to federal or state agencies, not the public or private companies. Therefore, no entity can directly ask Apple or Google to change their mapping system.
Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw certainly knew these things, but he posted on X anyway.
The BGN in the United States can instruct federal agencies to adopt that name, but the rest of the world may still refer to the body of water as the Gulf of Mexico. The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEN) is an organization that works with all member states to develop standards, and it seems unlikely that other countries will be willing to adopt such redundant name changes.
Apple and Google are global companies that provide mapping services to everyone. They use a combination of their own data and public resources to draw maps, names and layouts for users.
The Gulf of Mexico has been known as the Gulf of Mexico for more than 400 years. The name comes from the Aztecs, who were inhabiting the area when America was colonized.
Other countries have also tried to coerce Apple and Google into changing place names on maps. For example, Russia does not agree with Ukraine owning land in the east, or China does not regard Taiwan as an independent entity.
The standardization of place names on maps has always been important to ensure that everyone who reads a map around the world understands what they are seeing. Many countries that do not use English as their primary language have names that differ from those on standardized maps. For example, Japan is actually pronounced Nihon, and Germany is actually Deutschland.
Perhaps this executive order will result in the United States issuing paper maps and student handbooks showing the Gulf of America in the United States. To the rest of the world - including the U.S. military, which adheres to international naming conventions, it remains the Gulf of Mexico.
If Crenshaw is unhappy, perhaps he should first vent his anger on BGN, which still lists the Gulf of Mexico in its database. Meanwhile, it seems unlikely that Apple will change the name of the location due to a single country's request.