The Trump administration’s Interior Department said on Friday it had officially changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and the Alaskan peak Denali to Mount McKinley.
U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the name changes as part of a flurry of executive actions hours after taking office on Monday, making good on a campaign promise.
“As directed by the President, the Gulf of Mexico will now officially be known as the Gulf of America and North America’s highest peak will once again bear the name Mount McKinley,” the Interior Department said in a statement.
Alaska’s towering peak had been called Mount McKinley before, in honor of former U.S. President William McKinley, but was renamed Denali – meaning ‘tall’ in the Koyukon Indigenous language – in 1975 at the state’s request.
“These changes reaffirm the Nation’s commitment to preserving the extraordinary heritage of the United States and ensuring that future generations of Americans celebrate the legacy of its heroes and historic assets,” the department said.
In his inaugural address on Monday, Trump said McKinley, a Republican who was president from 1897 to 1901, “made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent – he was a natural businessman.” McKinley was head of the U.S. in an expansionist era, gaining Hawaii, Guam, and Puerto Rico as territories. Hawaii later became a U.S. state.
While Trump can direct the U.S. Geological Survey to change how it denotes the Gulf of Mexico, such a name change would be unlikely to be recognized internationally.
Mexico, which like the U.S. has a long coastline circling the body of water, has said the Gulf of Mexico name is internationally recognized and has been used as a maritime navigational reference going back hundreds of years.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum earlier this month jokingly suggested North America, including the United States, be renamed “Mexican America” – an historic name used on an early map of the region.