President Donald Trump signed an order for the Gulf of Mexico’s name to be changed to the Gulf of America.

This executive order only applies to the United States. This change was made on Jan. 20. “The Secretary shall subsequently update the GNIS to reflect the renaming of the Gulf and remove all references to the Gulf of Mexico from the GNIS, consistent with applicable law,” said President Trump. 

According to Trump, agency maps, contracts, and other documents and communications should apply the name change. Google Maps is a web service. However, Google Maps decided to make the change. The change occurred on Feb. 10. According to Google Maps News, they “have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.” For Google Map users in the United States, the name change will be visible as Gulf of America; users in Mexico will see Gulf of Mexico, and for the rest of the world, the name is Gulf of Mexico.

Cris Turner, Google Vice President of Government Affairs and Public Policy, states in a letter that Google’s consistent policy is “to consult multiple authoritative sources to provide the most up-to-date and accurate representation of the world.” 

Many students believe that the change wasn’t necessary. For example, Evelin Hernandez Mendez, freshman, states, “Trump shouldn’t be able to change the name of it. The Gulf of Mexico has been that name for centuries.”