They explained their reason why in a viral thread, saying: "We serve an international audience, a majority of which is outside the U.S.. The Gulf of Mexico is an international body of water, and the U.S.'s authority to rename it is ambiguous."

The President of the USA, Donald Trump, has decided that the Gulf of Mexico will be renamed the American Gulf, at least on maps within the United States. The effects of this decision by the White House are already noticeable on Google Maps.

The company said that Maps will reflect any updates to the Geographic Names Information System, a database of more than 1 million geographic features in the United States.