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Countries can tell companies what the maps of their countries should look like and what things should be called.

For example, Google shows different info about the Kashmir region depending on whether you are in Pakistan or India or external to both, because of how the Indian and Pakistani governments define the borders and names of the region. If the US government changes a thing's name, then Google will change that thing's name within the US. Google mostly doesn't choose names, it uses externally-supplied mostly-governmental name databases. Governments have the power to name their own regions.

I don't want Google to choose what things are called, so I think they are doing the right thing here, and the USG is doing the dumb thing.

When I worked at HERE Maps this was a pretty standard thing to do. Countries have official named in multiple languages. Borders are seen differently by different governments. A map is anything but static.
And the chaos of translation. It is fun to consider whether somewhere like Johannesburg should be called Johannesburg or Johnscity or YHWHisMercifulFortifiedPlace or what in English. The standard is obviously to keep the local term and pronunciation, but then apply that logic to languages with different scripts and nothing really makes sense in a satisfying way because mapmakers can't avoid some amount of translation. It is a muddle of conventions.
I don't want Google naming things, but I don't want a President naming them either. My preference is for things to be named by the people who live there/use the thing, but failing that at least I would want my mapping software to present the fact that there are multiple names/borders and let me pick which I want to view.
The president was given this power by the people. Crowd sourcing this is a particularly bad idea as countries already have working institutions that map and name things.

One alternative would be for Congress to create more barriers for name changes.

>Countries can tell companies what the maps of their countries should look like and what things should be called.

Not in America. The First Amendment means private entities, individual or organization, are free to draw maps and name things however they like and the government may not tell them what to do. The government can decide how it does its own maps, and society at large can decide whether they wish to use a different product or not.

>I don't want Google to choose what things are called

Tough shit. Google may choose for a variety of reasons to go along with what the USG decides is the naming, and in this case it has, but they can't be compelled by force to do so. And other private entities can choose differently should they wish. And of course everyone is entitled to comment or criticize it, and then comment and criticize the comments and criticism in turn, and make use and spending choices accordingly and so on. That's the vibrant market of ideas we're founded on.

plonk
The Gulf of Mexico is not a country.
It’s nothing special. If I visit Google Maps (France) then the channel of water between France and the UK is labelled ‘Manche’. If I visit Google Maps (US) the same body of water is labeled ‘English Channel’. The real notable event is the official change of name by the US government, not the follow on regionalization of maps.
> The real notable event is the official change of name by the US government

Correct.

Also this is a very politicised name change. Ergo, in the USA it will be embraced by supporters of the orange one, whilst everybody else in the USA will continue to call it "Gulf of Mexico".

As this was clearly done to stir up controversy, I can't think of anything more ridiculous. The job of a head of state is to unite a people, not divide them.

> The job of a head of state is to unite a people, not divide them

"Head of state" is very much a job where you get to define your own mission and duties, including "sell cryptocurrency to suckers" and "sow division to exploit". Defining internal and external enemies is a very effective technique for retaining power.

> Ergo, in the USA it will be embraced by supporters of the orange one, whilst everybody else in the USA will continue to call it "Gulf of Mexico".

Most Americans support ‘the orange one’. There was a poll conducted on this quite recently.

> France

You mean Surrenderland? I anxiously await whatever new moniker our leader comes up with for your country, but that's my bet.

Funnily enough my home country uses the French spelling for this despite it being a former British colony.
Makes sense. Google does not want to get into the business of deciding what's called what. They just want to take a government database and implement it so that people can complain to the government instead of to them.
Is the message here that it is the America in "USA" or the whole continent America in the alleged name of the gulf?

I guess I just should be glad the Navy wasn't involved somehow.

I think it's intended as the former, even though it ironically aligns quite nicely with the latter.
Ye I mean if the name change was done in some joint way to celebrate the friendship between the peoples around the gulf or what ever it wouldn't give the same vibes as some sort of preparation for an military expedition into Panama.

edit: Well looking on the map Panama is not in the gulf. I guess they are safe.

I think it should have been: "Gulf of the Americas"
I'd expect nothing less from Google and the other FAANGs.

I wonder what OSM will do?

https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/305639190

Most likely add an American English name, leaving the English name as Gulf of Mexico.

But I didn't read all 108 comments in the discussion.

The emerging consensus is that there is now an alternative English name, and that this is likely to end up as an official name for en_US (which can either mean American English, or the English name according to the United States) as well. It seems unlikely that the generic endonym (Golfo de México) will change any time soon, and unless this English alternative is adopted more broadly, it is likely that for the foreseeable future the English name too will remain 'Gulf of Mexico'.

What won't happen, is that visitors from the US will see that new name, at least in most OSM apps and websites. OpenStreetMap is not limited to one renderer or app, and anyone who builds one can choose how to handle localisation. But to support this name based on the tags proposed now such an app would have to prefer official names over common names, or explicitly choose this local alternative over the common name.

This is what the relevant name tags could end up looking like soon (other languages omitted for brevity):

    name=Golfo de México
    name:en=Gulf of Mexico
    name:es=Golfo de México
    official_name:en_US=Gulf of America
    alt_name:en_US=Gulf of America
Depending on how this all pans out, at some point name:en (the global English name) could shift to the Trumpian name, but that is a big if of course. OpenStreetMap simply documents the status quo, and that demonstrably isn't it right now (and might never become it). If at some point the new name becomes the common name in American English, it might end in name:en_US as well. Feeling this out would be mostly up to the American OSM community (e.g., do most media call it that now? How about US scientists and relevant institutes? What about use on the internet by American folk? Etc.)

A really simple map might only render whatever is noted in name. A map which takes the user's locale into account, or which explicitly chooses a base language or locale, would use a cascading fallback, which for en_US looks like:

* Try name:en_US,

* If missing, use name:en

* If missing, use name

So for now that would not yield 'Gulf of America', because usually neither alternative nor official names are considered for rendering.

In any case, the sea can be found using search under all those names.

This is not new or controversial. Names vary between languages and countries. What would be controversial, is for Google to decide on other names than the official one. If you're upset about the name change, blame the one who gave the order.
America's version of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-dash_line , I guess. At least they've not started making territorial claims to go with it, this is just a renaming to appease nationalists.
Actually, a lot of territorial claims start with "renaming", to provide support for some kind of base for the claim.

That specific case would have been quite minor (in the Trumpian show) except that it comes at the same time as USA (... sorry for all non-Trump supporter, but now that he's your POTUS, he represents all of you) suggest to invade (euh... "take back" ?) Panama and Groenland !

Right now, from outside of the USA, the USA is starting to be seen more as a wannabe-invader than an trusted ally...

So the renaming... that could have been just another Trump-ery (french play on word ;-) )... is taken quite seriously

In related news, chocolate rations are up.
The Gulf is getting more attention, but the McKinley one is pretty dumb too, considering McKinley never set foot in Alaska. Although, of course, it had that name before.

Trump seems to have a thing for McKinley - he has talked about him, which is interesting because I don't consider Trump much of history buff.

McKinley was big on tariffs and territorial expansion. It was the Gilded Age of concentration of wealth and corruption. And he was assassinated in the first year of his second term.

I wonder if they'll put the dashed/contested line around the Gulf of ~Mexico~ America?
Would be interesting to learn in what countries the executive branch actually involves itself in such matters as the naming of geographical features. Where I live, authorities are autonomous and this kind of micromanaging is not allowed.
> when “name changes vary between countries, Maps users see their official local name. Everyone in the rest of the world sees both names.

Can someone clarify this bit? What does "both" refer to: the local name and ?

They probably mean endonymy and exonymy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endonym_and_exonym

Different groups can have different names for the same thing. For example, country names change depending on the language.

I've come across similar reports about Google Maps before. The way maps are displayed can vary depending on the viewer's location. For example, if a country claims a particular territory as its own, citizens or residents of that country might see the map reflecting their government's claim. Meanwhile, people in neighboring countries or those opposed to the claim would see a different version of the map. I won’t mention specific examples, but this is how it generally works.
That seems a little like a typo, or a broken sentence, because it make no sense. (Google) Maps users will see their official local name, i.e. Mexican users will still see "Gulf of Mexico" (but in Spanish), but apparently anyone not using Google Maps will see both names... How can Google know that?

Based on local news, what they will actually do is have Maps display Gulf of Mexico for Mexican users, and Gulf of America for US users. Everyone else gets both.

Local, traditional name and the official name requested by the country embassy. For example at one point Birma changed it's name to Mjanma. It looks like this https://postimg.cc/zHYKb3DF
Some history on wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Mexico) - Colbert Report jokingly called it Gulf of America in 2010. Satire has become reality.

Maybe we can just take solace in that he didn't rename it Gulf of Trump. Yet.

Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42847758
I guess anyone can change it back. The only danger I see is if the naming stays in place longer than a decade.
That’s hilarious. It could be straight out of the “Idiocracy” movie script.
In "The Man in the High Castle" (Amazon TV series at least) the Nazis in the U.S. launch a "Jahr Null" initiative where they start the calendar at zero and purge a bunch of symbols of the old America (like the Statue of Liberty) and replace them. I feel like this is a kind of corn-pone Jahr Null.
What's so odd about it? Countries do that all the time, Czech Republic is now Czechia, Turkey is Türkiye, Haźlach is now Hażlach.

USA may as well change it's name to "Trump land", and Germans will still call it Vereinigte Staaten and Iranians will call it Great Satan.

The odd bit about it is that we're talking about a body of international water, not a country. It seems fair that a country gets to decide what it is called (and other countries can call it whatever they decide), but in this case, there IS no 'owner' so no 'official' name. So long as "Gulf of America" only ever appears to users in the US, there may not be much of a problem at all.

I guess the other odd thing about this is how quickly the change appears to have been adopted.

> Czech Republic is now Czechia

The Czech Republic is still the Czech Republic; it is also now known as Czechia. "Czech Republic" is the full official name of the country, like "United States of America". "Czechia" is the official short or informal name for the country, like "United States".

This is so childish and pathetic.
In keeping though - from the same bunch that changed the signs in the capitol cafeteria to "Freedom Fries" when their oldest ally had qualms about joining in in their illegal invasion of Iraq.
Did anyone see this coming? That Trump would rename it? I don't live in the US but over here I never heard about any controversy about the name.
Quislings.