References
- “Gulf of America - Gulf of Mexico”. stillhart. General talk. OpenStreetMap Community Forum. Published: 2025-01-20T17:37:25.493Z. Accessed: 2025-01-21T08:47Z. https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/gulf-of-america-gulf-of-mexico/124571.
- “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness”. The White House. Published: 2025-01-20. Accessed: 2025-01-22T06:59Z. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/restoring-names-that-honor-american-greatness/.
- §“Sec. 4”
There’s nothing to discuss. It’s the Gulf of Mexico, and suggestions to the contrary are to be appropriately dismissed as childish.
Aa a side note, make sure that, no matter what, you find a way to follow “Gulf of” with “Mexico”. It should flow by rote in the hearer’s mind, simply by virtue of the fact that they hear it the correct way when you talk about it.
This is a trivially easy battle to fight. Only use the correct name, and it will be the one that sticks. Using the incorrect name, even to make correct statements about how it’s dumb and childish and not going to be its name going forward, reinforces the lie.
Mexico is the Gulf-of-havin’est thing you ever did see.
OSM exists to record and map facts, not to dictate them. If some people call it that way, than it should be recorded in the database, it’s not about personal preferences and politics, we shouldn’t decide if the name is right or not. If you read the linked forum thread you can see that it is purely technical, about how we should record it in the database and when (now vs when and if it will become official)
It’s a bit annoying here that a lot of people misunderstands this, and comments recommendations with near zero osm mapping experience, this is about how to map a thing on OpenStreetMap, not about politics.
I could imagine Trump deciding that a random bird needed to be named after himself, and inaturalist having a forum discussion about localization etc. It’s probably the same kind of debate here
How does OSM deal with Arabian Gulf / Persian Gulf? I’ve only ever seen it referred to by the latter name by western sources but only the former name in Arabic over here.
I’m well aware that the name “declaration” of Arabian Gulf was a political move in the 20th century, but I’ve never seen the name Persian Gulf in Arabic. Never.
Just curious.