By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Mexico’s President, Claudia Sheinbaum, has written to Google, urging the tech giant not to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the name change within hours of taking office.
Google stated that Google Maps would change the name to ‘Gulf of America’ for US users once it is officially updated in the US Geographic Names System.
In her letter, Sheinbaum argued that the US cannot unilaterally change the name of a body of water it shares with Cuba and Mexico.
The change will reportedly be visible to users in the US, while the name will remain ‘Gulf of Mexico’ in Mexico. However, users outside both countries will see both names on Google Maps.
Although no international organisation is responsible for naming bodies of water, Mexico insists that the US cannot legally change the Gulf’s name. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea dictates that a country’s sovereign territory extends only up to 12 nautical miles from its coastline.
“The name change could only correspond to the 12 nautical miles away from the coastlines of the United States of America,” Sheinbaum said as she read the letter during her regular morning press conference.
In a statement on social media on Monday, Google said: “We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.”
“When official names vary between countries, Maps users see their official local name,” the statement added.
Google also confirmed it would be changing the name of Mount Denali back to Mount McKinley in the US, following another executive order from Trump, whose approval ratings have been low in the early days of his second term.
