MapQuest's app hits No. 1 in Navigation after refusing to rename Lake Ontario

MapQuest stood up to President Donald Trump, and now its app is reaping the rewards. The “OG of online mapping,” as the company calls itself, announced Thursday that it would not change the name of Lake Ontario on its maps to Lake America, despite Trump’s executive order directing the U.S. Department of the Interior to update the lake’s name in the U.S. geographic naming service. As a result, MapQuest’s mobile app downloads soared, sending the iOS app to No. 4 among all non-game apps on the U.S. App Store’s Top Charts as of Monday morning on the U.S. East Coast. MapQuest also reached No. 8 overall in the U.S. App Store across both apps and games, and became the No. 1 Navigation app in the country. In Canada’s App Store, the app reached No. 2 overall as of Sunday evening.

The 30-year-old company said it received “hundreds of thousands” of new downloads since its decision, and saw its app’s usage climb to 50 times above normal levels. Third-party data from market intelligence provider Sensor Tower confirms the surge, showing MapQuest saw 184,000 and 162,000 total global and U.S. app downloads, respectively, during the week beginning August 24 — each more than 10 times the week-over-week figure. In the U.S., daily downloads were up 128% day-over-day from August 26 to August 30.

“We took the same approach we did with the Gulf of Mexico: be part of the conversation, and give people an app that keeps the names they’re familiar with,” said Doug Berger, general manager of MapQuest, in a statement. MapQuest also released an online tool letting users jokingly rename Lake Ontario to whatever they want and share the results on social media — a similar tool it offered last year after Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

Trump’s move to rename the lake bordering the U.S. and Canada comes as trade talks between the two countries broke down, with the U.S. imposing new 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods and Canada poised to retaliate. Google Maps announced Saturday it was complying with the name change for U.S. users, while Apple Maps has not renamed the lake or commented on its plans. MapQuest’s app has been downloaded 687,000 times worldwide so far this year, up 29% year-over-year, Sensor Tower estimated.

Why it matters

The surge shows a legacy mapping app turning a politically charged naming dispute into a rare growth spike, and sets up a split between platforms that follow official U.S. government naming sources and those that don’t.