The Congressional Research Service (a nonpartisan arm of the Library of Congress) just released a report about the order’s implications for the federal government. The report is an interesting look into the mechanics of carrying out a rename. Regarding some of the earlier points in this thread:
Similar disputes could arise surrounding the naming of the Gulf of America. To address such discrepancies, the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN)—an international body established by the UN Economic and Social Council—has issued a resolution indicating that “when countries sharing a given geographical feature do not succeed in agreeing on a common name… the name used by each of the countries concerned will be accepted” (Resolution II/25). Thus, depending on the context, one or both of the “Gulf of America” and “Gulf of Mexico” may appear on international maps or publications.
Similarly, BGN decisions are not required to be adopted for nonfederal domestic publications. For decades, the Alaska State government has used “Denali” in place of “Mount McKinley” on state publications and maps. The recent E.O. would not mandate changes to the usage of “Denali” by the State of Alaska. Private companies such as Google Maps and Apple Maps would similarly be unaffected by the E.O. Despite this, some nonfederal entities may choose to adopt BGN naming conventions moving forward.
At this point, we should recall that OSM already differs from federal government geography in a number of ways, even domestically. For example, after a whole ordeal last month, we decided that, contrary to the federal government’s position, San Francisco County doesn’t exist, and there’s no such administrative boundary as Washington, D.C.[1] It’s probably only a matter of time before we once again divide Connecticut by counties instead of planning regions, again in opposition to most of the federal government. The reasoning is too involved to discuss here, but suffice it to say that one government’s viewpoint isn’t always definitive for the nuanced kind of map we’re making.
I think it’s telling that the CRS report says nothing about the distinction between the U.S. portion of the gulf and the gulf as a whole. Indeed, I’ve yet to come across any mainstream media report that qualifies the renaming in this manner. Maybe I’m just not very confident in my armchair lawyering skills, but unless actual colloquial or official usage moves in this direction, I would put it on the back shelf as an obscure legal quirk.
This tagging scheme is unfortunately incompletely implemented. Also, it’s designed for boundary=administrative relations and their constituent ways. Translating this scheme to the Gulf, we’d need to maintain a second node alongside the existing place=sea node, tagging it as something like… place=disputed or disputed:place=sea? If so, then we don’t have to overthink the naming; name=* and name:en=* would suffice for the “disputed” sea.
As far as I can tell, this would be a totally novel approach in OSM, one that we haven’t employed for the nearby Gulf of California / Sea of Cortéz or even more fraught situations like the South China Sea. I think a solution like this would only become necessary if we become convinced that Gulf of America really does refer to a different feature with a different geometry than Gulf of Mexico.
But the District of Columbia is an administrative boundary. ↩︎