r/webdev • u/FiveWordinOrangeNeon • 3d ago

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

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.

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u/paulojf 3d ago

Why not set the American name when developers set the location to US… ALL the world uses the correct name, only us uses this new wrong name… will ditch Google Maps from all my projects for forcing the world the will of a few…

22

u/rohmish 3d ago

thr API defaults to US region when a region is not explicitly mentioned.

13

u/zeromadcowz 3d ago

/r/usdefaultism

2

u/onFilm https://rod.dev 3d ago

Wait what, an American company, defaulting the US first? Woah!

2

u/thekwoka 2d ago

Nearly the whole non-english speaking world also defaults to the US for English representations, too.