Photo Credit: Apple Maps

By Sara Yarnell and Benjamin Hoffman

News Editor and Contributor

Hours after his second inauguration, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14172, “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness”. This executive order federally changed the official name of the “Gulf of Mexico” to the “Gulf of America.” On January 24, the Department of the Interior announced that the name change had taken effect. Companies, most notably Google, followed suit and renamed the gulf to the “Gulf of America”. The order in question described the necessity of the name changes as “to promote the extraordinary heritage of our Nation and ensure future generations of American citizens celebrate the legacy of our American heroes.” 

Since European settlement on the American continent, the former Gulf of Mexico has also been known by many different names and changed numerous times. Early Spanish cartographers called the Gulf “Mar del Norte” meaning Sea of the North and “Seno Mexicano” meaning Mexican Song. Historians first used the name “Gulf of Mexico” in 1607 with the name officially recognized by the United Nations.

Alongside the newly named Gulf of America, the order also reverts the name of North America’s tallest mountain back to Mount McKinley. Similar to the former Gulf of Mexico, the mountain has had many names over the years. The Alaskan Athabaskan Native Americans called the mountain “Denali”, meaning “The High One” or “The Great One”. The Russians gave it the name Bolshaya Gora, meaning “Great Mountain”. At one point, it was even called Densmore’s Mountain in 1889 by Frank Densmore, an American prospector. 

However, another American prospector gave it the name Mount McKinley, in support of then-Presidential nominee William McKinley. Twenty years later, Woodrow Wilson signed the Mount McKinley National Park Act in 1917, formally recognizing the name in the US. But, under the Obama administration, the mountain’s name was changed back to Denali, reflecting the indigenous population of the Alaskan region.  

Executive Order 14172 is to be carried out by the Secretary of the Interior, who is instructed to update the Geographic Names Information System to reflect the change. Other government agencies are advised to change all federal references to the former Gulf of Mexico to reflect it as well. It should still be noted that this instruction is only mandated federally with references to these geographic features required to be changed in federal departments, documents, and databases. 

Some private companies have agreed to comply with the order as well. Google and Apple Maps, for example, have announced that they will be adjusting the names of these geographic features to align with the new federal classification, with other private companies likely to follow suit. For US users of Google Maps, the Gulf now appears as the Gulf of America, while to the rest of the world, it still appears as the Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America). Users in Mexico do not see the name affected and it continues to be shown as the Gulf of Mexico. However, although the change only affects the United States, Mexico has still threatened to sue Google Maps over the changed name.

Recent polls have indicated that the majority of Americans either oppose or do not seriously consider the name change to the Gulf of America or Mount McKinley. A recent poll by Reuters showed that 70% of respondents oppose the name change of the Gulf. The Trump administration has taken steps to ensure the use of the name the Gulf of America, however. On February 14, 2025, the administration barred Associated Press reporters from the Oval Office and Air Force One indefinitely because of their referral to the Gulf as the “Gulf of Mexico”. It is unclear how long this ban will last.