Mapped: Lake America and 60 Years of U.S. Renamings
Key Takeaways
- President Trump has directed three major geographic renamings since 2025: Gulf of America, Mount McKinley, and most recently Lake America.
- The 2025 restoration of Mount McKinley directly reversed President Obama’s 2015 Secretarial Order renaming the peak Denali.
- Three mass federal programs in 1963, 1974, and 2022 removed derogatory terms from hundreds of geographic features.
From Cape Kennedy in 1963 to Lake America in 2026, the federal names of some of America’s best-known geographic features have changed, and in some cases changed back again.
This graphic uses data from the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN), White House executive orders, and U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary’s Orders to chart notable geographic renamings in the U.S. from 1963 to 2026.
60 Years of U.S. Geographic Renamings
The timeline includes individual name changes as well as three federal programs that removed derogatory terms from hundreds of geographic features. The changes were made through BGN votes, Secretarial Orders, or Executive Orders.
The table below shows the full timeline of featured renamings:
| Year | Event | Decision-Making Authority |
|---|---|---|
| 1963 | Mass federal derogatory term removal (wave 1) | BGN |
| 1963 | Cape Canaveral → Cape Kennedy | Secretarial Order |
| 1973 | Cape Kennedy → Cape Canaveral | BGN |
| 1974 | Mass federal derogatory term removal (wave 2) | BGN |
| 2008 | Piestewa Peak (AZ) | BGN |
| 2015 | Mount McKinley → Denali (AK) | Secretarial Order |
| 2016 | Harney Peak → Black Elk Peak (SD) | BGN |
| 2022 | 643 features renamed (wave 3, mass program) | Secretarial Order |
| 2022 | Mount Doane → First Peoples Mountain (WY) | BGN |
| 2023 | Mount Evans → Mount Blue Sky (CO) | BGN |
| 2024 | Clingmans Dome → Kuwohi (TN/NC) | BGN |
| 2025 | Gulf of Mexico → Gulf of America | Executive Order |
| 2025 | Denali → Mount McKinley (AK) | Executive Order |
| 2026 | Lake Ontario → Lake America (NY) | Executive Order |
Lake America Joins the List
On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14172, “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness,” directing the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America and the restoration of Mount McKinley.
In August 2026, Executive Order 14420 extended the approach to the Great Lakes, renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America.
All three Trump-era renamings apply to U.S. federal documents. The Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario remain the internationally recognized names.
How U.S. Place Names Have Changed
From 1963 through 2024, many federal renamings reflected two overlapping efforts: removing derogatory language from the federal record and restoring or applying names with Indigenous significance.
Three mass federal programs in 1963, 1974, and 2022 removed derogatory terms from the federal record; the 2022 wave alone covered 643 features.
The period also saw five individual BGN renamings, starting with Arizona’s Piestewa Peak in 2008, named for Lori Piestewa, the first Native American woman killed in combat while serving in the U.S. military.
More recent changes included Mount Doane to First Peoples Mountain in 2022, Mount Evans to Mount Blue Sky in 2023, and Clingmans Dome to its Cherokee name, Kuwohi, in 2024. Kuwohi is the highest point in a park that ranks as the most visited in the United States.
The 2015 renaming of Mount McKinley to Denali followed a different route. Alaska had used Denali as the official state name since 1975, but repeated efforts to change the federal name had been blocked by Ohio lawmakers from McKinley’s home state. The Obama administration ultimately changed the federal name through a Secretarial Order without requiring congressional or BGN approval.
Cape Canaveral offers an earlier example of a federal name change being reversed. Renamed Cape Kennedy by Secretarial Order in 1963, it returned to Cape Canaveral following a BGN vote in 1973. Kennedy Space Center retained its name.
Whether the federal names introduced over the last two years will outlast the administration that created them, or join Cape Canaveral and Denali on the list of features renamed more than once, remains an open question.
