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Google Maps in the US Will Change to Gulf of America and Mount McKinley
- euroderf 2y agoIn related news, chocolate rations are up.
- andyjohnson0 2y agoI'd expect nothing less from Google and the other FAANGs. I wonder what OSM will do?
- wiether 2y agoSome answers here : https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/gulf-of-america-gulf-of-mexico/124571 https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/gulf-of-america-gulf-o...
- Symbiote 2y agohttps://www.openstreetmap.org/node/305639190 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.
- Freak_NL 2y agoThe 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.
- oneeyedpigeon 2y agoThis is an excellent, detailed comment — it's so good I want to ensure it's exactly as you intended. In your "This is what the tags could end up looking like soon" example, should at least one of those (alt_name:en_US?) be "Gulf of America"?
- Freak_NL 2y agoWell spotted! That was a typo on my part.
- oneeyedpigeon 2y ago> 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 ?
- Beretta_Vexee 2y agoThey probably mean endonymy and exonymy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endonym_and_exonym 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.
- oneeyedpigeon 2y agoSo "both" means a) the endonym and b) the exonym of the country in which the user is currently located? Makes sense, I guess. Edit: However, as far as I can tell, there IS no endonym in this case, so it should be exonyms all round?
- Beretta_Vexee 2y agoIt's a bit complicated to talk about an endonym for the Gulf of Mexico. There's no endogenous group in the Gulf of Mexico, because nobody lives there. So yes, there are only exonyms.
- mathieuh 2y agoThe endonym and exonym in English were the same previously (Gulf of Mexico). The endonym is now is changing to Gulf of America while the exonym is remaining Gulf of Mexico. I'm not aware of any other places where there is the case in English but looking at places in India it seems the exonym just appears on a different line above the endonym. So I would expect to see Gulf of Mexico Gulf of America over the body of water when this is updated.
- redbell 2y agoI'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.
- rightbyte 2y agoIs 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.
- oneeyedpigeon 2y agoI think it's intended as the former, even though it ironically aligns quite nicely with the latter.
- rightbyte 2y agoYe 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.
- jdougan 2y agoI think it should have been: "Gulf of the Americas"
- oneeyedpigeon 2y agoEven "Gulf of America" wouldn't be SO bad if people like me (non-US English speaker) can wean ourselves off the habit of referring to the US as "America". I'm going to start doing my bit.
- amunozo 2y agoThis is so childish and pathetic.
- ta20240528 2y agoIn 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.
- qq66 2y agoMakes 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.
- pjc50 2y agoAmerica's version of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-dash_line 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.
- olivierduval 2y agoActually, 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
- ben_w 2y ago> Right now, from outside of the USA, the USA is starting to be seen more as a wannabe-invader than an trusted ally... I was thinking something very similar, even before I heard the Gulf-name news. Not sure what I should do with this belief, I don't want it living rent free in my head: https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/making-beliefs-pay-rent https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/making-beliefs-pay-rent
- c16 2y agoI wonder if they'll put the dashed/contested line around the Gulf of ~Mexico~ America?
- stapled_socks 2y agoThis 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.
- pmb 2y agoCountries 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.
- nicbou 2y agoWhen 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.
- roenxi 2y agoAnd 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.
- Freak_NL 2y agoThere is no chaos there. When you label something on a map, you never translate any of the names. What you do, is use the exonyms which already exist. That is, local names which may have been literally translated at some point, or might simply have changed to align with local orthography and pronunciation, and which have become common place and accepted. Like encyclopaedia, most reliable real-world maps document what it is, not what the author thinks it should be (obviously this is a possible use of maps; see China's nine-dash-line bullshit). So you wouldn't be making your own translations. At most, you would transliterate names in scripts not readily understood by your target audience.
- oldpersonintx 2y ago[dead]
- docdeek 2y agoIt’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.
- mahmoudhossam 2y agoFunnily enough my home country uses the French spelling for this despite it being a former British colony.
- GJim 2y ago> 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.
- nailer 2y ago> 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.
- viciousvoxel 2y agoThis is actually not true: just under 50% of votes went to GOP. Additionally, only 64% of the voting-eligible population voted, so it was more like 32% of the adult population voting GOP. "Everybody else" represents a larger population.
- nailer 2y agoAsides from the GOP winning the popular vote, you seem to be counting people that didn’t vote as opposition rather than nulls.
- mongol 2y agoWould 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.
- tetris11 2y agoI guess anyone can change it back. The only danger I see is if the naming stays in place longer than a decade.
- postepowanieadm 2y agoWhat'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.
- oneeyedpigeon 2y agoThe 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.
- cempaka 2y ago> I guess the other odd thing about this is how quickly the change appears to have been adopted. Silicon Valley is fully on board with the Trumpian "vibe shift."
- vonmoltke 2y ago> 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".
- mongol 2y agoDid 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.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ks2048 2y agoSome history on wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Mexico 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.
- ks2048 2y agoThe 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.
- hcarvalhoalves 2y agoThat’s hilarious. It could be straight out of the “Idiocracy” movie script.
- cempaka 2y agoIn "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.
- ChrisArchitect 2y agoEarlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42847758 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42847758
- drawkward 2y agoQuislings.