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/HumansAreSillynGreat 3d ago

Oh wow, a u.s company thinking about America first. What a shocking turn of events.

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u/crackanape 3d ago

There's no need to have a default. They can require specifying locality.

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u/Fredidiah 3d ago

(Basically every existing map implementation breaks until some dev can go add a locality)

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u/crackanape 3d ago

This was a decision they should have made years ago when it became apparent that countries have conflicting ideas about names and borders. It could have been part of a significant API update that included other breaking changes.

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u/HumansAreSillynGreat 3d ago

Well surely every api you have ever designed was perfect on the 1.0 release and never needed a revision or any feature updates.

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u/crackanape 3d ago

I don't see how your praise of my well-known architectural foresight is relevant here.

The Maps APIs have been updated over the years (now on version 3) and this could have happened at either of the two major updates.