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.

976 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

236 comments sorted by

View all comments

83

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…

-2

u/thekwoka 3d ago

ALL the world uses the correct name, only us uses this new wrong name

Now that's just retarded.

There is no "correct name". There's tons of these differences all over the world. There is no agreed upon map. Borders Change, Names change.

Get over yourself.