MapQuest Surges to Top of US App Charts After Refusing to Rename Lake Ontario

MapQuest, the pioneering online mapping app, has become the most sought-after navigation tool in the US after refusing to comply with President Donald Trump's order to rename Lake Ontario. According to The Guardian, the app held the number one spot on Apple's App Store as of Tuesday morning.

The move follows MapQuest's public rejection of Trump's August 27 executive order, which directed federal agencies to refer to the largest of the Great Lakes as “Lake America” amid trade tensions with Canada. The app has overtaken rivals such as Google Maps and Apple Maps to top the list of most-downloaded apps, as first reported by TechCrunch.

Meanwhile, Google quickly conceded to Trump's demands by displaying “Lake America” to US users. Apple is reportedly considering a similar decision under pressure from the White House.

MapQuest, the 30-year-old company that calls itself the “OG” of the internet mapping era, appears to have been rewarded for holding its ground. According to TechCrunch, downloads of the app have “skyrocketed” in recent days, making it the fourth most popular app in the US excluding games, and the top navigation app on the App Store, with Google in second place.

In Canada, MapQuest was also the second most-downloaded app as of Sunday evening. This comes as a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Tuesday showed that only 14% of Americans support Trump's efforts to rename the lake, while 57% oppose the new tariffs on Canadian goods.

MapQuest CEO Doug Berger said app usage is running at about 50 times normal levels. He added that the company is offering users the opportunity to create their own name for the lake as a fun feature. This tool was first introduced by MapQuest after Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” in 2025, a change that Google also adopted in the US market.

Berger said: “We've applied the same approach as we did with the Gulf of Mexico: join the conversation and give people an app that keeps the names they know. Hundreds of thousands of people showed us this weekend that we did the right thing by downloading our app.”

MapQuest has maintained its defiant, even mocking, stance toward the Lake Ontario renaming order since its “We're not changing it” social media post on August 27. The following day, in a post written entirely in capital letters in the style of the president, the company wrote: “Our maps are big and beautiful. People come to us and tell us we'll get them where they need to go. And we do!”

The company also responded to a user who expressed surprise that MapQuest still exists and hasn't “ended up in the same grave as RadioShack” — the once-famous American electronics company that went through two bankruptcies and closed its retail stores a decade ago. MapQuest replied: “Understandable, but the original is different, @RadioShackUSA, we're still here,” noting its existence as an e-commerce business.

On Tuesday morning, Apple Maps was still showing the waters spanning the US-Canada border as Lake Ontario, despite Monday's statement by Doug Burgum, Trump's Interior Secretary, that he was “confident” the app would soon display the name Lake America after the president contacted the company directly. On Google, maps for US users reflected the change, but it remained Lake Ontario — a name that has existed for about 400 years — for users in the rest of the world.

Meanwhile, protests continue to escalate. A large billboard reading “Lake Ontario — Forever and Always” in English and French was erected over the weekend near Grimsby, Ontario. Ontario Premier Doug Ford told ABC News: “Nobody calls it Lake America. It has been Lake Ontario for hundreds of years. It will continue to be Lake Ontario.”

On Monday, three US Democratic lawmakers — Tim Kennedy and Joe Morelle of New York, and Debbie Dingell of Michigan — introduced legislation called the Hands Off the Great Lakes Act, aimed at blocking the Republican president's federal order to rename the lake and preventing future changes.