Mapping the Fake History of ‘Lake America’
What’s happening: Pro-Trump social media users are claiming that a 1688 French-language map of North America labels Lake Ontario as “Lac America,” which purportedly demonstrates that President Donald Trump merely restored the historical name when he renamed it Lake America. No surprise: It’s a fake.
Context: On Aug. 27, 2026, amid a breakdown in trade talks with Canada, Trump signed an executive order directing the name change, saying, “We took something called the Gulf of Mexico and we changed it, and now it’s very routinely the Gulf of America. So, if you think about it, we have a gulf and we have a lake, now all we need is an ocean.”
- Polling conducted by Ipsos in the three days after Trump issued his order found that 63 percent of U.S. adults, including 43 percent of Republicans, opposed the move to rename the body of water that sits on the border of New York state and the Canadian province of Ontario.
A closer look: Amid this backdrop, pro-Trump social media users shared an image supposedly depicting a 1688 French-language map of North America showing Lake Ontario labeled “Lac America,” or Lake America. Users presented the map as historical justification for Trump renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America.
- For example, pro-Trump X user @Michael59302787 shared the map with the caption, “Wont [sic] you take a look at that.. apparently Trump is just correcting what was once called lake America a very long time ago. from an old canadia [sic] map that’s in French.” The post received 73,700 views and 3,700 likes.
- On LinkedIn, pro-Trump user Cloud Haley posted the map image and stated, “Isn’t [it] amazing the original name by the French was called Lake America.” The post received 119 likes and 19 reposts.
Actually: The map is not authentic and was digitally altered.
- A copy of the original, unedited version of the map published online by the University of North Carolina’s Research Laboratories of Archaeology in October 2024 shows the lake labeled “Lac Ontario,” not “Lac America.” The rest of the manipulated image matches the map published by the University of North Carolina.
NewsGuard found no evidence that “Lac America” was ever a name for Lake Ontario.
- French explorer Samuel de Champlain called the body of water “Lake St. Louis” in 1632 and in 1660, a Jesuit historian named Francis Creuxius called the lake “Lacus Ontarius,” derived from the Iroquois word for “beautiful lake,” according to a webpage on the Great Lakes published by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy. “Lacus Ontarius” is the Latinized version of “Lake Ontario.”
Zooming out: Trump’s executive order drew swift and widespread opposition from Canadian leaders. Prime Minister Mark Carney said in an Aug. 27 X post, “Canadian women and men … know that things must be called by their name, and this lake is called Lake Ontario — today and forever.” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said, “I have to laugh when he comes up with these ideas. It’s always going to be Lake Ontario here in Canada.” He added, “If he wants to name it Lake America, Lake Trump, whatever he wants to do, that’s his prerogative.”
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Anti-Israel social media users are claiming that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a prominent pro-Israel lobbying group, has approval power over American history textbooks, giving the group control over how history is taught in the U.S.
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