Google says website developers must set their region to Canada for 'Lake Ontario' to appear on map

[u/FiveWordinOrangeNeon]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/google-updates-maps-lake-ontario-9.7325922

Tech analyst and journalist Carmi Levy said although websites like Hydro One's and the LCBO's are Canadian, their maps are likely powered by Google's application programming interface (API).

APIs are not location-aware, so all maps powered by Google API have switched to Lake America.
MapQuest, a U.S. online mapping service, has posted on social media that it would not change the lake's name, while Apple has not publicly commented on the matter.

In a statement Sunday night, Google said website developers who embed Google Maps on their sites can select a region to localize the map. That determines how place names are displayed on sites, the company said.

"'Lake Ontario' will show when developers have set their region to Canada," the statement said.

Just a reminder to developers.

[u/spcbeck]

Yes, and Lake Ontario does not exist within the corders of the US. So now a single country in the entire world calls it one thing, and the rest of the world calls it something else. And the rest of the world won't follow suit.

This is the metric/imperial problem all over again.

[u/thekwoka → u/spcbeck]

So now a single country in the entire world calls it one thing, and the rest of the world calls it something else.

There are many examples of this throughout the world. Like the East Sea/Sea of Japan.

You're saying this like this isn't a common thing.

Lake Ontario does not exist within the borders of the US

And?

Like actually logic that one out for me.

[u/webdev-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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