Google, on its Google Maps naming policy, back in 2008:
By saying “common”, we mean to include names which are in widespread daily use, rather than giving immediate recognition to any arbitrary governmental re-naming. In other words, if a ruler announced that henceforth the Pacific Ocean would be named after her mother, we would not add that placemark unless and until the name came into common usage.
Google has confirmed that Google Maps will soon rename the Gulf of Mexico and Denali mountain in Alaska as the “Gulf of America” and “Mount McKinley” in line with changes implemented by the Trump Administration, but users in the rest of the world may see two names for these locations.
Nothing is worth less than the word of a corporation.
What about Breslau and Saigon?
That brings me back to G.W. Bush Jr, renaming French fries to Freedom Fries.
Technically, that was the House of Representatives in their cafeteria, but in solidarity with the Iraq war
That’s true, That was a memory of TV news around 2001.
Some of my ancestors were forcibly kicked out of France about 400 years ago. I am totally on board with Freedom Fries.
Speaking about the expulsion of the Acadians (1755 – 1764) ?
It ended in 2018 ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil
What did you expect? Sundararajan Pichai is Mkcinsey and Company graduate one of the companies dismantling America with political and corporate clout. Anyone could have seen this coming a mile away, or recently at the current Inauguration.
My rename is better than your rename.
I asked the mountain, and it still says you have it wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq_kHy-RlaU&t=28s
As long as it’s just for American users, I don’t really care. It’s not as bad as the humiliation ritual of calling Taiwan alias the Republic of China “Chinese Taipei” as it happens in the Olympic Games and elsewhere.
Taiwan is legally PRC territory that has a special self-ruled administration the PRC allows to exist, that’s why the Olympic Games have to call them “Chinese Tapei”. But the insistence of some people in the West to pretend Taiwan is an independent country (for example having bilateral meetings at the President/Prime Minister level as if Taiwan was an independent country) or hinting that it will become an independent country is what will cause a war with China. China will never give up the EEZ the Taiwan islands generate without a war.
>Taiwan is legally PRC territory
How?
before 1872: Taiwan part of the Chinese Empire (Qing dynasty)
1872-1945: Taiwan part of the Japanese Empire
since 1945: Taiwan returned to the Republic of China
since 1949: communists take over the mainland and create the PRC, but they never conquer Taiwan which therefore remains RoC territory
So please tell me how Taiwan is PRC territory in any way? It has NEVER been part of the PRC for a single day.
>b-but the UN and US say there’s only one China and it’s the PRC
Irrelevant. There’s also people saying the 3rd Reich never ended and the official borders are still those from 1937 – the only thing that matters is the reality.
Here is how:
When they took over the mainland, they took over Beijing, which means they took over all governmental institutions and became the new government of China (and every other country and the UN recognized that shortly after). Ever wondered why the capital is always the last city to fall (even in those cases it’s not the largest citty)? Now you know.
And since countries don’t magically lose territory when the government changes, China still de-jure retains its 1945 borders.
So, the West should be glad that China allows the self-ruled administration of Tapei to exist and stop risking a war where China when China is not even doing something illegal. In other words, the West should stop sending US or German ships in what is de-jure China territory. Seriously folks, Russia kicked our collective butts in Ukraine with much less mlitary and financial firepower, you don’t want a war with China at a national or even personal level if it can be avoided.
tl:dr; when China says they don’t want US or German ships entering what is de-jure Chinese territorial waters or airspace, they are not even legally in the wrong
Nanking was and is the capital of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Take a look at any of the ROC’s maps. The Communists (PRC) taking Peking was immaterial as it was not the seat of government.
Have you ever lived/studied in Taiwan?
Still, the communists took Nanjing too, so they captured the governmental institutions and took over the government. My point is, there is a reason Taiwan is not a country, how you feel about it is irrelevant.
kurkosdr,
The problem with that logic is that it can be reversed while remaining equally “true”: The logic is therefor unsatisfactory. Consider…
“Taiwan is a country, how you feel about it is irrelevant.”
There isn’t a global consensus. The real answer should be “it’s complicated”, haha.
https://www.thoughtco.com/is-taiwan-a-country-1435437
The list of UN member states is the official list of countries. Otherwise, you will have to consider all kinds of breakaway provinces to be countries, even the “Donetsk People’s Republic” and the “Luhansk People’s Republic” (which are both legally Ukrainian territory).
My point is: Taiwan having its own armed forces and a significant degree of autonomy is already a huge win for the West, considering the legal situation. But some very dumb politicians who can’t leave good-enough alone are jeopardising that by acting as if Taiwan has full independence. If a war with China breaks out, my country (Greece) will have to suffer (being a NATO member and all) because some politicians were dumb. Do not want. And your country will also suffer most likely. Please don’t support this.
kurkosdr,
I do appreciate your point of view, but it gets complicated very quick. Polls show that a majority of those living in Taiwan don’t consider themselves Chinese. Of course this opens up Pandora’s box of whether people can democratically declare themselves to be sovereign and free.
I suspect that ultimately it will have less to do with rules and more to do with military might. China overthrew Hong Kong’s democracy in violation of international treaties, they just took it by force and the democratically elected leaders were imprisoned. International agreements didn’t matter. So for better or worse, this is probably going to be decided through military means as well. It sucks, so much life and resources get wasted on military with incalculable opportunity costs, but sometimes I feel this is inevitable. Some fight for freedom, others fight for control.
Not fighting is an option that is easy to promote as outsiders, but those involved stand to loose their freedoms.
It’s complicated 🙁
There is a simple answer to that: No
– The residents of Taiwan cannot democratically declare themselves to be sovereign and free from the PRC
– The residents of Donetsk cannot democratically declare themselves to be sovereign and free from Ukraine
– The residents of Luhansk cannot democratically declare themselves to be sovereign and free from Ukraine
– The residents of Kosovo cannot democratically declare themselves to be sovereign and free from Serbia
– The residents of Transnistria cannot democratically declare themselves to be sovereign and free from Moldova
– The residents of Louisiana couldn’t democratically declare themselves to be sovereign and free from the United States back in 1861
– The residents of California can’t democratically declare themselves to be sovereign and free from the United States today (because they don’t like the current US administration or whatever)
How you feel about either of the above or what morals are at play is irrelevant (that’s why I have arranged a pretty varied collection with different justification each above to drive home the point).
This is a settled issue: You can’t unilaterally secede from a country. The country’s government has to cede that territory via a legislative act or the signing of treaty, and until that happens, the territory remains to the country,
kurkosdr,
I don’t think these examples rebut what I’m saying. Whether any declaration of independence ends up being accepted as true or not is function of military might. The US declaration of independence was just a paper, however the war fought over it is what made it true.
I understand what you are saying and I’m not trying to be morally dismissive of your opinion. However we need to recognize that the world doesn’t necessarily work that way and there are all too many examples of governments going back on their own international agreements to take control by force. It’s a harsh reality with lots of political agendas in the fray.
And what you don’t understand is that legal status still matters. It was the reason Russia faced sanctions for invading Ukraine but Azerbaijan didn’t face any sanctions for invading Nagorno-Karabakh: Nagorno-Karabakh is legally Azerbaijani territory, so Azerbaijan didn’t invade anyone, they simply regained monopoly of force in that part of their country.
Similarly, if China invades the Taiwan islands, NATO countries and friends won’t even be able to make a legal argument to the UN that an invasion has happened, it will literally be the West against the world (and the UN). And that’s why provoking China over the Taiwan issue (for example by having bilateral meetings with Taiwan leadership at the President/Prime Minister level as if Taiwan was an independent country or sending NATO ships and planes in areas that are legally the territory of the PRC) is a monumentally dumb idea. So, of course there are politicians in the West who are doing exactly that, because idiocy is in high supply in the Western hemisphere. Please don’t support that idiocy.
kurkosdr,
It only matters to the point some military is willing to do something about it. Having strong military allies can make a meaningful difference for your outcome regardless of other merits. On paper, the middle east borders were internationally settled decades ago, in reality however those border agreements are only as strong as the forces that enforce them. The world’s strong men know that geopolitical boundaries can and do bend to military might.
I’m not that interested in settling who’s right or who’s wrong, my point is merely that real world factors are extremely complicated. BTW this is exactly why I called it “Pandora’s box” before.
Discussion about this issue in OSM wiki: https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/gulf-of-america-gulf-of-mexico/124571
In most cases OSM follows “on-the-ground truth”, so such changes are unlikely to happen anytime soon. Conflicts can also be resolved by using language-specific names.
While this principle resolves most issues quite effectively, it also leads to problems when mapping ongoing conflicts. In these situations OSM often ends up siding with the aggressor when the conflict is still active. Some areas, like Crimea or parts of West Bank get enough visibility to remain disputed). Others, like Potemkin villages in Bhutan constructed by China for a sole purpose of editing the map (they go far beyond what is needed for serving Chinese troops) are quietly given to China without much discussion – the whole region (Doklam) is now tagged as part of China disputed by Bhutan.
Thom realising that Google is a US company and have to obey US laws. It’s easy for Google to pull out of China because they don’t like the laws there (for example), but they cannot pull out of the US (not without moving headquarters at least).
There is no US law telling Google Maps what to call anything.
Absolutely, it’s free speech and Google doesn’t have to do anything. They can have incorrect maps, or correct maps, totally their choice. I just wouldn’t expect them to move this quickly though.
Interesting… does this mean I can make a map of the US that shows Alaskan places with the Russian names they used to have? And I won’t be hunted down for publishing “fake facts” or whatever?
Actually, yes, you can. Producing maps with incorrect information used to be a mainstay of the cartographic world. Map makers used to include roads, alleys, sometimes, even entire villages and islands that didn’t exist in their maps to catch when a competitor copied their maps. You can read more about it here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street
Does it include “flat earth” maps ?
Of course you can. I’m curious about what country you are from? You seem to have some unusual ideas about what our laws are. If I want to make a map of the US and call it Cheeseburgerland I’m perfectly free to do so, and there’s certainly no law that says I (or Google) have to call the Gulf of Mexico anything else.
So my question: what’s an alternative to GoogleMaps (or Waze — now owned by Google)?
Would Grasshopper Maps ( https://graphhopper.com/maps/ ) be a viable choice ?
If you’re talking about smartphone apps, I’m quite fond of Organic Maps, which is a fork of Maps.me made by the original creators of Maps.me (the latter is gaining some great UX but also some ‘dark’ UX — weird yucky-feeling commercial stuff). https://organicmaps.app/
Thanks! I missed seeing OrganicMaps in F-Droid because I’d had an “anti-feature” clicked off. Grrr.
Does Burma-Myanmar, Cambodia-Kampuchea or Calcutta-Kolkata bother you? Batavia-Jakarta? No? Maybe it’s just Trump who grinds your gears.
Those are all examples of locals taking control of their own namings, usually to replace colonial names.
Just like “Queen Charlotte Islands” are now called “Haida Gwaii”.
Florida Felon is welcome to rename as many US locations as desired. Mt McKinley is fair game.
Problem arises with trying to rename international bodies of water.