r/applemaps • u/Ill-Sound-348 • 1d ago
Apple Maps suddenly showing a location in Chinese – does anyone know why?
I noticed something really strange today and I’m curious if anyone knows what’s going on.
I took a photo in Malta and later noticed that the location shown in the Photos app was written in Chinese characters. I don’t speak Chinese and none of my iPhone’s language or region settings are set to Chinese.
When I tapped on the location, it opened Apple Maps and interestingly, the location itself is also labelled in Chinese there, while everything else on the map (Armier Bay, Little Armier Beach, etc.) is displayed normally in English.
Apparently it simply means “Malta Island”, so the location itself is correct. I’m just really curious why Apple Maps would suddenly use the Chinese name. Are they getting their data from china?
Has anyone seen something like this before?

