Google to change names of Gulf of Mexico, Mount Denali

Google said in a social media statement on Monday that it would change on its maps the names of the former Gulf of Mexico and the Alaskan mountain formerly called Denali. President Donald Trump on his first day in office signed an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. The same order changed the name of Denali back to Mount McKinley, which had been its name from 1896 to 2015 when then-President Barack Obama changed it to Denali.

Why is Google changing these names? The company said its policy was to conform to official government sources in the names that it used for different locations on the globe. When different countries have different names for the same locations, Google shows users the name for the location that their country uses. Users across the rest of the world see both names for that location.

Why did Trump want to change these names? Trump ordered the Gulf of Mexico’s name changed because he said the Gulf had played such an integral role in the United States’ development and prosperity. The president ordered Denali’s name changed back to Mount McKinley as a tribute to President William McKinley.

McKinley expanded the borders of the United States, won the Spanish-American war, and wielded tariffs to protect and foster U.S. manufacturing, Trump said. In 1901, Leon Czolgosz shot McKinley several times from close range, making him the third U.S. president assassinated while in office. The country honored McKinley by naming North America’s highest peak after him, Trump said.

Dig deeper: Read Leo Briceno’s report in The Stew about what Trump’s flurry of executive orders immediately after he took office indicated about his next four years in the White House.