On 27 August 2026 the President signed an executive order titled “Honoring the American History of the Great Lakes and Renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America.” The order directs that the body of water now named Lake Ontario be renamed “Lake America.” It is signed Donald J. Trump and dated at the White House on that day. It cites Executive Order 14172 of 20 January 2025 (Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness). Section 1 recites a policy of naming great natural landmarks for shared American achievements.
Within 30 days of the date of the order, the Secretary of the Interior is to take all appropriate actions, in coordination with the Board on Geographic Names and consistent with 43 U.S.C. 364 through 364f, to rename as “Lake America” the body of water currently named as Lake Ontario. The Secretary, conjointly with the Board, is then to update the Geographic Names Information System to reflect the renaming and to remove all references to Lake Ontario from the GNIS, consistent with applicable law. The Board is to provide guidance so that all Federal Government references to Lake Ontario, including on executive department and agency maps, contracts, and other documents and communications, reflect the renaming.
The order describes the lake as bounded on the south and east by the State of New York and on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario. It states that the deepest parts of the lake’s waters lie within United States territory and that the United States “claims most of the Lake’s volume.”
Section 1 states that the United States Coast Guard supplies 9 of the 11 ice breaking vessels on the Great Lakes, and that the United States has invested nearly $4 billion in protecting the Great Lakes freshwater ecosystem in the last decade, while Canada has invested far less in similar initiatives over the same period.
The order is to be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations. It creates no right or benefit enforceable by any party against the United States. The Department of the Interior is to bear the costs of publication. The instrument operates on United States federal naming systems. It does not purport to change Canadian law or rewrite international hydrographic charts.