Changing Lake Ontario's name violates an over 225-year-old treaty signed by President Washington and the Haudenosaunee confederacy
A screenshot of Google Maps taken in the US on August 30, 2026 shows “Lake Ontario” renamed “Lake America.” (Photo by Google Maps/ Screengrab) ‘Embarrassing’: Google Maps Renames ‘Lake Ontario’ as ‘Lake America’ in US The name change followed President Donald Trump’s executive order and “served as a reminder that billionaires will always side with authoritarians, because authoritarians will always protect billionaires at the expense of democracy and the working class.” Olivia Rosane Aug 30, 2026 Tech giant Google faced widespread criticism over the weekend for becoming the first major online map provider to change the name of “Lake Ontario” to “Lake America” for its US users, after President Donald Trump ordered the name change in an executive order on Thursday. Google presented the decision as a procedural one in its statement on Saturday: The US Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) has formally changed the name for “Lake Ontario” to “Lake America” in the United States . S...
