A stroke of President Donald Trump’s pen this week raised a roiling question for cartographers and style-minded journalists: What to call a peak and a gulf.
A postinaugural flurry of executive order signings Monday included one to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and revert the name of Alaska’s Mount Denali to Mount McKinley.
The Associated Press issued guidance Thursday, three days after the order, saying it would honor Trump’s directive on McKinley, continue using the Gulf of Mexico, and update the online stylebook shortly. The decision will affect masses of journalists; Politico reported that 45.5 million users in 100 countries use the stylebook monthly.
The AP responded before either name change became official. Trump’s order gives the Interior Department 30 days to codify the gulf’s name and the interior secretary 30 days to revert Denali to McKinley, the mountain’s name from 1917 to 2015. The Senate has yet to confirm Trump’s interior secretary nominee, former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.
In a statement explaining the AP’s decision, Amanda Barrett, the group’s vice president of standards and inclusion, first addressed the gulf, writing, “The Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years. The Associated Press will refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen. As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.”
The AP said that, per the stylebook, news outlets may also use Gulf or Gulf Coast to describe the body of water along the Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas coasts. The AP added that sometimes it refers to a geographical place by more than one name. For example, the body of water the U.S. government calls the Gulf of California, Mexico calls the Sea of Cortez.
Turning to the mountain, Barrett wrote, “The Associated Press will use the official name change to Mount McKinley. The area lies solely in the United States and as president, Trump has the authority to change federal geographical names within the country.”
In the language of the Indigenous Athabascan people, “Denali” translates as “the tall one,” “the high one” or “the great one.” Trump has expressed admiration for McKinley, who was president from 1897 until 1901, for his use of tariffs. In his inaugural address Monday, Trump said, “President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent.”
Some elected officials, notably Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, have opposed Trump’s move. In December, she issued a press release saying, “For years, I advocated in Congress to restore the rightful name for this majestic mountain to respect Alaska’s first people who have lived on these lands for thousands of years. This is an issue that should not be relitigated.” Monday on X, she wrote, “I strongly disagree with the President’s decision on Denali.” (PolitiFact this week rated Mostly True Murkowski’s statement that the mountain had been called Denali for thousands of years.)
Although AP members will probably use the new guidance, private businesses need not. Google Maps and Google Earth, for example, still had the Gulf of Mexico on its maps Thursday night. So did Apple Maps, much to Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas’ chagrin.
The U.S. Coast Guard and Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, have started using the new Gulf of America name. DeSantis used it in an executive order related to the recent polar vortex storm that brought unusual, and record-breaking, snowfall to his state. “Whereas, an area of low pressure moving across the Gulf of America, interacting with Arctic air, will bring widespread impactful winter weather,” DeSantis’ order read.
The Coast Guard, meanwhile, issued a Tuesday statement saying it would increase its presence and focus in several areas, including “the maritime border between Texas and Mexico in the Gulf of America.”
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum mocked Trump’s gulf-naming. During a Wednesday press briefing, she stood by a map and said North America should be renamed “América Mexicana,” or “Mexican America,” as it was in an 1814 founding document that preceded Mexico’s constitution.
And on X, one user posted a map of the recent polar vortex stretched across the southern U.S., and wrote, “We never had blizzard warnings from the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf of America sucks.”
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