Last week, Canadians took to Google’s community forum to vent their displeasure over the U.S. company mislabelling provincial parks as state parks.
“All Canadian provincial parks appear incorrectly on Google maps and in Google searches as state parks. We do not have states in Canada,” wrote user Louise N in the forum.
Over 1,300 other users have since flagged the issue on the forum. An example of one of the parks labelled as a state park can be seen here.
Some users speculated that this was an attack on Canadian sovereignty—tied to U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to transform Canada into America’s 51st state. “There [are] not any state parks in Canada regardless of what Trump wants Google to have people think,” wrote user Kelly Knudsen.
This theory was fueled by the fact that on January 27, Google changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America for all American users. Mexican users still see the ocean basin as the Gulf of Mexico, and anyone outside of the U.S. or Mexico will see both names.
“We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources,” Google wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
In mid-2024, the company also removed Black History Month, Pride Month, Women’s History Month, and Indigenous Peoples’ Month from its calendar application, citing the difficulty of keeping up with a growing number of holidays.
But in the case of provincial parks mislabelled as state parks, a Google spokesperson said in an email that this issue predates any comments made by Trump. “We have not made any recent changes to the way we label parks in Canada,” the spokesperson said. “The vast majority of these parks have had their existing labels for several years.”
The spokesperson added that Google has several labels for parks in its systems. Since provincial and state parks are similar designations, the company often uses them interchangeably in its backend.
The explanation is unlikely to appease Canadians as they continue to express their frustrations on the forum. “Do better please,” wrote User 355403319942666540. “We’re not Americans and don’t have states. We have provinces. If your maps can’t correctly label our geographic locations then you probably should get out of the map business.”
In response to the backlash, Google has said it is actively working to update labels for parks in Canada.
Although, the company still doesn’t seem to be labelling all locations as provincial parks. In Google Maps, areas such as Mount Seymour Park in B.C. and Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, which straddles the Alberta/Saskatchewan border, have been changed from a “State Park” to a “Park and Garden.” While Blackstrap Provincial Park near Saskatoon has been changed from a “State Park” to a “Provincial Park.”
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