As President Donald Trump’s approval rating hit a new low, he turned once again to the art of redrawing the world map. With the stroke of a pen, the President sought to erase over 400 years of cartographic history by renaming Lake Ontario as “Lake America” through executive order. Trump’s unilateral action requires that the U.S. Board on Geographic Names update its databases to “reflect the renaming of the Lake and remove all references to Lake Ontario.”
Trump’s executive order applies to all U.S. federal maps, documents, and other communications. However, experts suggest that Trump can’t force other countries, international organizations, private mapping companies, or even U.S. state governments to use the new name. Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney has already responded in no uncertain terms that Canada will retain the original name of Lake Ontario “today and forever.” New York Governor Kathy Hochul also rejected the use of the name “Lake America” on New York state maps.
As two geographers who have spent decades studying political toponymy, or the politics of place naming, in both the United States and Canada, we are dismayed by the careless nature of Trump’s impulsive use of place renaming as a form of political rage baiting.
Renaming Lake Ontario is part of a larger pattern of using place naming to promote the Trump brand and his “America First” ideology. From the very outset of his second presidential term, Trump launched the so-called “Golden Age of America” by announcing that the Gulf of Mexico would be renamed the “Gulf of America.” This has now been followed with “Lake America,” and Trump even mused about possibly renaming the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, we presume to something along the lines of “American Ocean” or “Ocean of America.”
Over the past year, Trump’s obsession with naming places has given rise to a new term—toponymic narcissism—which refers to the condition of being obsessed with naming places after oneself.
In many respects, Trump tends to approach the world map much like the Greek mythical figure of Narcissus viewed a body of water: as an opportunity to admire the reflection of his own self-image.
The cost of this narcissistic approach to controlling and changing place names is that it obscures how these names should be shared symbolic resources that serve the broader public and not just the ambitions, grievances, or political feuds of a single individual.
The conventional process of naming geographical features along the U.S.-Canada border involves bringing a formal proposal to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names and the Geographical Names Board of Canada, along with their state and provincial counterparts on both sides of the border. There is generally an extensive consultation process to ensure all geographical naming authorities are on the same page before moving forward with a name change. Yet Trump has thrown all of this out the window simply to rage-bait a U.S. ally into submission.
While the standard place naming process is not perfect, it at least establishes an institutional procedure for review, consultation, evidence gathering, and consideration of competing claims before a geographic name is changed. By contrast, what we are witnessing under Trump 2.0 is a unilateral naming by decree or whim with seemingly no public discussion or real government consideration of impacts and consequences.
It is clear to us that Trump’s renaming of Lake Ontario is symbolic political theater aimed at diverting our attention away from the fallout of his trade war with Canada. Yet symbols matter. Place naming is a world-making practice that shapes the very foundations of our geographical imaginations and how we come to know and engage with the world.
There is a risk in dismissing Trump’s cartography of mass distraction as a frivolous symbolic tactic, since it can have real consequences for what is taught in classrooms, reconciliation efforts with Indigenous peoples, and the badly needed repair of relations between the United States and Canada.
If there is any hope to be found in the cartographic carnage that Trump is unleashing on the world map, it is that a future president can just as easily reverse these name changes in an attempt to restore America’s world image.
