U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said on the 31st (local time) that U.S. President Donald Trump personally contacted Apple to demand that Lake Ontario be renamed Lake America on its map application.

According to foreign media outlets including the Associated Press and BBC, Secretary Burgum appeared on Fox Business that day and stated that President Trump "contacted Apple directly."

Secretary Burgum added that he is confident the name "Lake America" will soon be visible on Apple Maps as well.

Amid recent trade tensions between Canada and the U.S. over tariffs, President Trump signed an executive order on the 27th of last month renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America, seemingly as a provocation.

Lake Ontario serves as the border between the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of New York, and is one of the Great Lakes of North America.

Google, a competitor of Apple, has been displaying Lake Ontario as Lake America on its map app since last weekend.

Google cited President Trump's executive order and its existing policy of using names designated by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (GNIS) as the basis for its decision.

As a result, if users access Google Maps in the United States, it appears as Lake America, while in Canada, it is displayed as Lake Ontario, just as before.

In third-party regions, both names are indicated together: Lake Ontario (Lake America).

Google promptly applied similar executive orders last year when President Trump signed orders changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and renaming Denali, North America's highest peak in Alaska, to Mount McKinley.

However, Apple has yet to change the name of Lake Ontario despite President Trump's request.

(Photo: Yonhap News)