In an executive order presented as “restoring names that honor American greatness,” US President Donald Trump said he would rename the 617,800-square-mile Gulf of Mexico as Gulf of America.
“The Gulf will continue to play a pivotal role in shaping America’s future and the global economy, and in recognition of this flourishing economic resource and its critical importance to our Nation’s economy and its people, I am directing that it officially be renamed the Gulf of America,” the executive order, signed and published in the late hours of Jan. 20, reads.
While the Denali-Mount McKinley change can be instituted by executive order, the Gulf of Mexico is a shared body of water bordering Mexico, the U.S., and Cuba. The naming is not governed by any international protocol, so a renaming would apply only within the U.S. Other countries would be free to continue referring to it as the Gulf of Mexico, a name dating to the 1670s.
Such a change also could cause a rift between Mexico and the U.S., just as Japan and South Korea dispute the name Sea of Japan. Iran refers to the body of water separating it from Saudi Arabia as the Persian Gulf while the latter calls it the Arabian Gulf.
Mexico is not on board with Trump’s plans to change the Gulf’s name
On Jan. 8 Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum sarcastically responded to Trump’s intent to change the Gulf by saying that the U.S. should be called “América Mexicana” or “Mexican America.”
to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” on official maps – a change that could take months to enact and may or may not be immediately reflected on the digital maps Americans use daily.
“The Gulf of America – which has a beautiful ring,” Trump said at a news conference at Mar-a-Lago on January 7. “The Gulf of America, what a beautiful name and it’s appropriate.”
The Gulf of Mexico has been so named at least since the late 1600s, when it was used to describe the body of water that’s bordered to the north by the United States’ southern coast, from Texas to Florida. It also wraps around Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
It is the ninth largest body of water in the world, according to the US National Parks Service.
Roughly the size of Alaska, it covers more than 615,000 square miles and is almost a thousand miles wide from east to west and 660 miles wide from north to south.
The Gulf’s shoreline is about 3,540 miles ‒ more than half of it bordering Mexico’s coast, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, although that does not account for the myriad bays and inlets.
According to federal officials, over the last six centuries, the gulf has also been known as the Golfo de Nueva España (The Gulf of New Spain) and Mar Di Florida (the Florida Sea), among others, reflecting its long-contested history between France, Spain, and other European countries as they colonized the New World.
Who’s in charge of renaming the Gulf?
Renaming geographical place names is the work of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. The federal office has the power to rename geographic places within the United States.
TYT Newsroom
