31-03-2025
The Gulf of Bavaria? If Trump can rename a gulf, why can't we?
If US President Donald Trump can rename the Gulf of Mexico, then Germans can rename bodies of water in their country - and there are plenty of them.
What about the "Gulf of Bavaria" for the upper Bavarian tourist magnet Lake Chiemsee Or the "Gulf of East Frisia" for the body of water in the North Sea. Munich offers the "Gulf of Giesing" on the banks of the Isar river.
While Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico by decree, people in Germany are choosing to use the Google Maps function to enter places as points of interest.
"All kinds of players are now using this to make fun of Donald Trump's renaming decree in a way," says Georg Glasze from the Institute of Geography at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität in Erlangen.
Fake reviews poke fun at the US administration
"Elon and Donald like it," reads one comment on the 'Gulf of Penzberg' in Lake Huber in Upper Bavaria, which has since disappeared from the map. At the "Gulf of Gaildorf" north-east of Stuttgart, there are calls to "Make Gaildorf great again!" and "Gaildorf First."
And on the "Gulf of Zündorf" on the Rhine, someone enthuses: "Wonderful view of the Statue of Liberty at the harbour entrance!"
An allusion to Trump's penchant for superlatives can be found in Saxony at the "Great Gulf of Görlitz."
"It's the only true Gulf of Görlitz! And it belongs to the good people of Görlitz! Good people! Good golf!"
Short shelf life
The trend is not expected to last, though.
"Google has been monitoring such entries relatively closely for several years," says geographer Glasze. "I assume that these many golf courses in the Google databases are not very long-lasting."
In fact, many of them disappeared a short time later, quite unlike Trump's decree. Google has implemented this at least in part, Glasze says. On the maps in Germany, it still says Gulf of Mexico - not Gulf of America, as Trump renamed it by decree.
The randomness of names
"You could imagine that the many gulfs would make it playfully visible how arbitrary some labelling is - similar to that of the Gulf of America," says Martin Hullin of the Bertelsmann Foundation, one of the largest foundations in Germany, with the aim of making democracy crisis-proof and sustainable.
Glasze considers the campaign to be "at least a little subversive."
"Geographies are always 'made' - the only question is by whom," he says. In the past, the naming of places was closely linked to the power to enforce this on maps and in practice.
Digitalization has changed this, he says, but adds he sees inequalities here too. Large tech companies are increasingly exercising control and monopolizing geographical knowledge, commercializing it and controlling it through the use of algorithms.
Google's efforts
Google Germany states: "Google endeavours to keep Google Maps as up-to-date as possible and to display correct information to users."
Many gulfs quickly fell victim to these checks, including the one in Penzberg in Upper Bavaria, whose Lake Huber, also known as HuberWeiher, had briefly been renamed the Gulf of Huber.
This despite the fact that it is a relatively small body of water, more like a pond. It is 400 metres long - compared to the 1.6 million kilometres that spans the Gulf of Mexico.
A town spokesman had no problem with the renaming.
The town is a carnival stronghold and can cope with a joke, he says.
