MapQuest has surged in popularity on the app charts after the mapping service said it would not rename Lake Ontario to “Lake America” after President Trump signed an executive order changing its name.
The company said its mobile app received hundreds of thousands of downloads after it announced Thursday that the name Lake Ontario would remain on its apps, despite Trump directing the Interior Department to update the lake’s name in the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
By Monday morning, MapQuest had climbed to No. 1 among navigation apps in Apple’s U.S. app store and No. 4 in non-gaming apps. In Canada, which shares the lake with the U.S., the app reached No. 2 overall over the weekend.
The app’s usage also jumped to roughly 50 times its normal level, according to MapQuest.
MapQuest responded similarly to the controversy surrounding Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” on his first day back in office, allowing its users to refer to the body of water however they please.
“We took the same approach we did with the Gulf of Mexico: be part of the conversation, and give people an app that keeps the names they’re familiar with,” Doug Berger, general manager of MapQuest, said in a statement.
“Hundreds of thousands of people signaled to us this weekend that we got it right, by downloading our app,” he added.
The move contrasts the approach taken by competitor Google Maps, which began displaying Lake America for U.S. users on Saturday after the name was added to the GNIS. Canadians will continue to see Lake Ontario, in line with opposition from Canadian leaders to refer to it as Lake America, while users elsewhere will see both names.
Apple Maps continues to display the lake as Lake Ontario as of Tuesday morning. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Monday that Trump had reached out to Apple directly about changing the name on its mapping services.
Trump signed an executive order last week formally changing the U.S. government’s designation for Lake Ontario amid an escalating trade war with Canada after negotiations collapsed between the longtime allies.
Canadian officials have pushed back on Trump’s move to rename the Great Lake, asserting that it will not adopt the new name.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said on Sunday that the name change resembled “something out of ‘Saturday Night Live,’” while Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney cited the lake’s longstanding history as a reason to reject the change.
“We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms,” Carney said. “Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario — then, now and always.”
