Google Maps users are reporting Canadian provincial parks mislabelled as "state" parks.
The recent U.S. tariff situation and ongoing rhetoric from U.S. president Donald Trump has resulted in some patriotic pride (hello, Canada bagel) and cartographic changes (have you heard of the Gulf of America?).
So when users of Google maps recently noticed that dozens of Canadian landscapes were mistakenly labeled as "state parks" by Google and other online services, red flags over sovereignty went up.
A post on Google’s support forum states:
“Canadian provincial parks incorrectly listed 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. How can this be fixed?”
Why has Google made the update?
After hearing from Canadian users, Google is fixing the issue which predates Trump's return to power.
Will the update be fixed?
According to a report by the CBC, Google is actively working to update labels for parks in Canada to avoid confusion.
An email from Google included the following response:
“We have not made any recent changes to the way we label parks in Canada. The vast majority of these parks have had their existing labels for several years."
Why is Google calling Canada parks state parks?
It appears that Google is simply using “state park” as a generic term to categorize the provincial park locations.
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