Mexican President to Google: Wrong to change name of ‘Gulf of Mexico’

by | Jan 31, 2025 | Family | 0 comments

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum stated Thursday that Google was incorrect to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico on its Google Maps platform after US President Donald Trump ordered that the body of water be renamed the “Gulf of America”. Sheinbaum issued a letter to Google in which her country argues that the United States cannot unilaterally change the name of a body of water it shares with Cuba and Mexico.

The shift comes after Google said on Monday that it will change the name of the “Gulf of Mexico” to “Gulf of America” for US users once it is formally amended in the US Geographic Names System.

The change will be noticeable in the United States, but the name will remain “Gulf of Mexico” in Mexico. Outside of the two countries, both names will appear on Google Maps. Sheinbaum and Trump have sparred about the name change, with the Mexican president earlier suggesting that if countries were renaming things, North America should be renamed “Mexican America” after a 1607 map of the region. According to Mexico, the United States cannot legally change the name of the Gulf because the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea states that a country’s sovereign territory is limited to 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers) from its coastline.

[The name change] could only refer to the distance of 12 nautical miles from the beaches of the United States of America,” Sheinbaum stated as she read the letter during her normal morning press conference. Sheinbaum further stated that Mexico had asked Google to prominently show the map of Mexican America. “We request that when you enter Mexican America in the search engine, the map that we displayed

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