Firstly, I know that iNaturalist is not responsible for the underlying maps (I think Google is?), so I hope it is okay if I still put it in this category.
Somewhat related to the US data purge topic, the Gulf of Mexico has simply been renamed to Gulf of America just like that. What’s more: it doesn’t just affect maps in the US, but in Germany also, and so it will probably be like this globally.
Regarding data integrity, this raises some huge red flags for me. If the underlying map continues to change on the whim of the American president (or any other single individual) and those trying to appease him, it seems to have become a bad choice for a site such as iNaturalist which, for one, is international and, for another, has to uphold the standards of scientific objectivity.
Good science depends on accurate information. If the underlying map mirrors the imagination of a single individual rather than geo-political reality, then it is not compatible with that principle.
" In the U.S., the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) has officially updated “Gulf of Mexico” to “Gulf of America.” As we announced two weeks ago and consistent with our longstanding practices, we’ve begun rolling out changes to reflect this update. People using Maps in the U.S. will see “Gulf of America,” and people in Mexico will see “Gulf of Mexico.” Everyone else will see both names." [Source: Blog.Google, link above]
Thank you eyekosaeder for bringing this up - while with new laws in the USA the new name might be correct, it is not for the rest of the world - Google maps in Germany shows it as “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)” in Mexico it shows it as “Gulf of Mexico”. So the change to “Gulf of America” should be only (or mainly?) visible in the USA. Since the USA joined the list of sensitive countries (as classified by Google), this issue is not just about the “Gulf of Mexico/America/ the Carribean” or what you call it - but generally about how the maps represents areas of sensitive countries in different parts of the world, too (examples in the link above).
I don’t think it’s within the scope or even possible ability of iNat to curate its own map, so it will always use 3rd party maps. But you can switch to OSM if you don’t like Google!
From Australia, if I open google maps in my browser, it shows as Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America). But if I look at a map in iNat, it shows as Gulf of America
Thank you for providing more information. I didn’t realise Google maps normally showed both names in Germany.
What worries me regarding iNat is that both Google and iNat are based in the US, so unlike similar instances (such as Persian Gulf vs. Arabian Gulf) the people responsible for the name-change have much more power over the platforms.
I’m also more worried about the precedent it sets. What if, for instance, due to government pressure or by own initiative google decides to label Greenland or Canada as part of the US, even if that change would only be visible in the US?
That’s my default map because it better shows trails and forest paths. But I prefer maps when looking at marine stuff because OSM doesn’t display those names at all. (I noticed the change because I was looking at marine organisms in that area. I changed the filter to Coccinellini for the photo)
To me the issue of what to call the Gulf of Mexico is a smaller problem than what it says about the capricious and ultra-ideological current US government.
Is any database with information about the natural world (especially anything related to climate change or human health, but also e.g. endangered species) safe in the US now?
I share these worries, but that problem was already discussed in the thread I linked to (which has now been closed). I didn’t want to restart that discussion here. But it’s definitely not nice to think about the potential data loss due to the data not suiting the people in power. :/
I have noticed similar problems on the world map. If you go to Explore and enter “Ukraine” as the location, it shows the whole of Ukraine, including the occupied Crimea. However, if you enter “Syria” as the location, it shows Syria without its southwesternmost province of Quneitra, which has been occupied by the neighbouring country for a while. Although all countries in the world except for the USA recognize Quneitra as part of Syria, since the underlying map of iNat is American, it doesn’t show Quneitra as part of Syria.
When I raised this issue a while back, I was told that nothing can be done and the thread was closed and hidden for being too politically sensitive. So I guess all you can do is just accept it as it is, and if you’d ever upload observations from that area, you could at least manually enter the location as Gulf of Mexico for your own peace of mind.
It’s not for most of us from the US either. It’s for a specific subset of people in the US who I should not describe as I’d likely get banned from iNat if I were to describe them.
It seems the best any of us can do is to bring this up directly with Google. Perhaps someone could suggest what forum or other means would be the best venue for such communication.
On one hand, this name change based on the whim of one person is so laughably ridiculous I could think it’s satire and not reality. On the other hand, it’s alarming that our institutions are so spineless as to cave in to such demands.
It’s the Gulf of Mexico. Someday sanity will be restored.
That thing is actually broken. What you see in the screenshot is Google Maps, but sometimes, when you switch back and forth between Google Maps and OSM (using the layers button), the credit for OSM stays floating above the Google Map, it happens to me as well.
Google Maps officially follows the government of the country you are in for its place names. Therefore, if viewing Google Maps of the US, it will display as “Gulf of America”. If you view Google Maps in another country or with a VPN, it will still display as “Gulf of Mexico” unless other countries start using this name, too.
