alt Hacker NewsHow Google determines the names for bodies of water in Google Earth
Comments
@dang: title's off; the blog post is titled "How Google determines the names for bodies of water in Google Earth."
The how is operative, I think, since it changes the title from being about the process of how Google determines a name when it's there, to being about Google acting as some kind of rogue despot that goes around naming bodies of water.
Disclaimer: work for Google
This article is not as pure as it might seem but I think this is also a post-hoc reasoning to explain what decision they went with for the "Persian Gulf" / "Arabian Gulf" decision, and Google then proceeded to change their stance on that in the following years:
"Google had previously put both Persian Gulf and Arabian Gulf on its Google Maps. After May 2012, it removed both names from the body of water stating that it does not name every place in the world and that it did not want to take a political stance. Iranians complained about the change and started a Twitter campaign asking "Where's the Persian Gulf?".[66] Since 2016, Google Maps has displayed both Persian Gulf and Arabian Gulf on the body of water and shows "either Arabian or Persian Gulf to local users, depending on geolocation and language settings."[67] Google Earth shows both names, unless viewed through a server from a Gulf Coast Arab country, in which case it labels it simply "Arabian Gulf"." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Gulf_naming_dispute#:~...
Evidently Google in bending the knee with the America naming but I think they also haven't exactly taken a purely principled stance in the past either
The key quote:
> But if different countries dispute the proper name for a body of water, our policy is to display both names, with each label placed closer to the country or countries that use it.
Clearly that policy has changed since 2008. Not surprising, since that's before they decided to officially be evil.
So wild to be living in a time where the most powerful man in the world is very obviously turning senile and those that surround him choose to indulge his outbursts rather than address the problem.
For corporations in a country to be subject to and follow the rules promulgated by the elected authorities of that country is normal and just. To 'capitulate' or 'not resist' the President of the United States is fine. I cannot be bothered by this. In this case, it seems a natural extension of the non-English policy to a world where the Anglophone nations are in conflict on naming:
> For language clients other than English, we display only the preferred name in the relevant language. For example, the Japanese client of Google Earth shows "Sea of Japan" in Japanese (日本海), while the Korean version shows "East Sea" in Korean (동해).
Of course, the solution described here is not a perfect one, (as perfect solutions don't really exist when it comes to messy human things like international politics) but it at least follows from an easy to identify set of principles on how ambiguous situations like these should be handled.
Then you look at the current day with the "Gulf of America" which fails to be primary, common, or local, and just get disappointed.
"We want Google Earth to merit users' trust as an authoritative reference..."
I guess they've changed their minds since 2008... Their display of "Gulf of America" without "Gulf of Mexico" and "Lake America" without "Lake Ontario" is at odds with their declared policy.
Current statement: https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/maps/gni...
The craziest thing here is that they used to allow comments on the corporate blog.
I was literally swimming in Lake Ontario when I learned it was now Lake America. Nice capitulation, Google.
Are we surprised that technology companies are extremely mercenary? Why?
Not really sure what the point is in posting some ancient policy from 2008, almost two decades ago?
Policies change and evolve. What would be more notable would be if they didn't.
And in this case, I'm not surprised at all. Trying to be the arbiter of what is considered common place names feels like a thankless and ultimately impossible task. If I were Google, I would quickly give up on that as well and simply follow official sources.
Don't like it? Then vote for the other guy next election. That's what living in a democracy is about. If anything, sticking to government names gives people even more reason to vote for the other party next election. The more people who get exposed to these dumb name changes on Google Maps, the better.
The title of the post is actually:
> How Google determines the names for bodies of water in Google Earth
But the HN link is
> Google determines the names for bodies of water in Google Earth
Is this one of those cases where HN automatically changes the submission name? Because removing the `how` really changes the meaning here.
Luckily, there are maps services that actually do keep the common local names: https://mapy.com/
Well, that aged well!
I miss when we didn't have a deranged pedophile dementia patient in the white house...
Why the submission today OP?
Lots of related/relevant discussion 2 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49495947
> But if different countries dispute the proper name for a body of water, our policy is to display both names, with each label placed closer to the country or countries that use it.
Is anyone actually able to verify this behavior? All I'm seeing is the Trumpy names no matter where I look.
Presumably related:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/22/trump-atlant...
> Donald Trump said Google rejected his request to rename the Atlantic Ocean after himself or America. Speaking at a rally in South Carolina on Wednesday, the president said he had called Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, to ask whether the company could “handle” his proposal.
>According to Trump, Pichai rejected the latest proposal. Trump described the Google CEO’s response by saying, “No, no, no. This time I’m not doing it … Oceans are different, sir. They cover … a lot of countries. Please don’t ask us to do that.”
How times have changed sigh
What happened on Google Earth when the Democrats renamed some mountain a few years ago?
Also: Why is this comment downvoted?
Funny thing is the 2025 Gulf rename kind of follows this policy by region. US users get Gulf of America, Mexico gets Gulf of Mexico, and everyone else sees both labels.
> As the publishers of a geographic reference tool, we believe that Google should not choose sides in international geopolitical disputes. For this reason, we've chosen to implement a uniform policy of Primary Local Usage.
Yeah, right, until a wannabe despot comes in and demands Google come lick its boots. In which case Google immediately complies with zero objection.
get over it already its gulf and lake of america
Google is an American company. America's President asked the name be changed. Kinda stupid to accuse them of anything untoward.
"By saying "common", we mean to include names which are in widespread daily use, rather than giving immediate recognition to any arbitrary governmental re-naming. In other words, if a ruler announced that henceforth the Pacific Ocean would be named after her mother, we would not add that placemark unless and until the name came into common usage. "
They violated their own policy with the gulf then.