Comment by jvolkman
11 hours ago
Yes. We had the same comments about Gulf of America.
Edit: I don't know that there's an actual database served up by the US Gov, but governments control the naming of these things within their own jurisdictions. All of the big mapping products have the ability to serve up different names based on where you're viewing from.
And Apple just renamed: https://apnews.com/article/apple-lake-ontario-america-google...
https://edits.nationalmap.gov/apps/gaz-domestic/public/searc...
GNIS, Geographic Names Information System
(Which still shows Lake Ontario for me as I write this. The body of water along the US's southern coast is Gulf of America however.)
The database entry was updated to "Lake America" on August 27:
https://edits.nationalmap.gov/apps/gaz-domestic/public/searc...
GNIS renders their own static map tiles, so it may take a while for the update to be reflected on the map itself.
> Per Secretarial Order 3453, Lake Ontario has been renamed to Lake America. The basemaps for GNIS are in the process of being updated to reflect this name change.
I see this on the top bar
The government does not control the words you or I use to refer to things.
It makes perfect sense that govs control names within their jurisdiction - I am eyerolling at both the name change and the reaction.
I am curious though - is it convention to leave the data as is, or is it illegal to modify it?
Regardless, itll just be changed back in 2 years; as long as I can type "lake ontario" and get directed to Lake Ontario, I do not care at all what the gov database calls it currently.
I wouldn't exactly describe one person as "the government".
I mean ... currently I would? The environment will be different soon
> I am eyerolling at both the name change and the reaction.
Why do you expect meek reaction in a rename like this? What is eye rolling over reacting to this particular rename?
Well, because I expect this to last for two years. Nobody likes it except for birthday boy and his sycophants. All of the signs around Lake Ontario still say the name; same goes for the people that live by it.
Google should override it but I don’t expect them to, because theyre selfish and suck. Only thing to do is win elections.
It would be nice if Maps would prefer data from government DBs that have localized versions of foreign place name data (e.g., Germany's BKG) when available.
> governments control the naming of these things within their own jurisdictions
No they don't. People can, and should, call things what they want without deference to government overreach.
[flagged]
So unimportant that you just have to comment on how unimportant it is
It’s so unimportant folks are commenting on my comment about how unimportant it is!