15-04-2025
Gulf of Mexico name change for Florida textbooks and laws signed. When will it happen?
And with a stroke of the pen, Florida became the first state to officially recognize "Gulf of America" as the name of the body of water off the western coast bordering nearly half of the state.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed two bills (HB 575, HB 549) that rename what's currently still known as the Gulf of Mexico in state law and public school textbooks. The move is a response to President Donald Trump's day-one executive order, "Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness," to change the name of the Gulf and rename Denali, a mountain in Alaska, back to Mount McKinley.
DeSantis was also the first to use "Gulf of America" in any official capacity when he referred to it in an order concerning the freak winter storm that shattered Florida's 130-year-old snow records just hours after Trump's directive in January.
Here's what to know.
Under HB 575, The Designation of the Gulf of Mexico, all references in Florida statutes to the Gulf of Mexico must be changed to Gulf of America.
It's a long list, as it includes 53 different mentions, including all descriptions of boundary lines for Florida counties bordering the Gulf, references to tourist development taxes, coastal construction regulations, property rights regulations, beach management, the definition of "coastal barrier islands." tax regulations for oil drilling aznd more.
A tongue-in-cheek amendment to the bill from Rep. Dr. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, to instead change the name of the Gulf to the Gulf of Endor — with requirements for other landmarks to also be renamed after other "Star Wars" locations — was not added or we might have seen the Grand Canyon renamed "Sarlacc Pit," Las Vegas now called "Mos Eisley" and Interstate 4 changed to the "Kessel Run."
The changes to state law will take effect on July 1, 2025.
Under HB 549: Gulf of America, all state agencies must update their geographic materials to use the new name.
Initially, that would have meant all existing school books and educational materials, but an amendment changed that to require the new name in all instructional materials and library media collections adopted or acquired on or after July 1, so schools have some time.
On January 20, the first day of his second term, Trump directed the secretary of the interior to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America' for use on official maps and throughout the federal government.
This is ordinarily at least a six-month process, but it was fast-tracked by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names and quickly adopted by Google Maps, Apple Maps and others. Once it was changed, Trump issued a proclamation declaring Feb. 9 to be "Gulf of America Day."
"The area formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico has long been an integral asset to our once burgeoning Nation and has remained an indelible part of America," the order said.
It didn't receive universal acceptance. MapQuest allowed users to name the Gulf whatever they wanted and the order was mocked by Democrats, late night hosts and on social media.
The Associated Press, a worldwide news organization, announced that its widely used style guide would continue to refer to the Gulf as the "Gulf of Mexico" since it shares borders with another country and has been called that for more than 400 years. The Trump administration reacted by barring its reporters from events.
AP sued, and last week, a federal judge ordered the White House to lift its access restrictions.
Other countries are not obligated to honor the new name. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo mocked the suggestion at the time, suggesting the United States should be called "Mexican America." However, recognizing the new name is likely to be a sticking point for countries hoping to deal diplomatically with the Trump administration.
Trump is not the first to suggest it. In 2012, former U.S. Rep. D. Stephen Holland of Mississippi proposed a bill to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to "Gulf of America." He meant it as a joke, to mock his Republican colleagues he said seemed to want to push anything or anyone Mexican out of the state.
Two years previously, when he was on "The Colbert Report," late night host Steven Colbert created a "Gulf of America" fund to help clean up after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster dumped 210 million gallons across nearly 60,000 square miles of the Gulf over a period of four months in 2010.
"I don't think we can call it the Gulf of Mexico anymore," he said at the time. "We broke it, we bought it."
More than half of Florida's coast borders the Gulf of Mexico, a partially landlocked body of water between the United States and Mexico that links ports in five Southern states and Mexico with the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean with two passages — called the Florida Straits — on either side of Cuba and the Yucatan Channel between Mexico and Cuba. The Gulf has an average depth of 5,300 feet.
The Gulf mainland shore runs more than 4,000 miles from the Florida Keys to Cabo Catoche on the Yucatán Peninsula.
Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas all share the coast, along with the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Vera Cruz, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo.
While existing residents certainly knew about it and had their own names, the first European to find the Gulf was Sebastián de Ocampo in 1508-1509, according to the Texas State Historical Association. It remained unnamed until the early 1540s and was considered part of the "North Sea" (Atlantic Ocean). One map dated 1584 called it "Mare de Nort," or "Sea of the North."
Baptiste Boazio, the illustrator and map maker of Francis Drake's Caribbean cruise of attacks in the 1580s, used "Gulf of Mexico" on his map "View of Entire Route of Sir Francis Drake's West Indian Voyage." A 1630 map called the body of water "Gulf of New Spain."
The Spanish name evolved into Seno Mexicano. "Seno" means "gulf" or "bay." It has also been called Golfo de Nueva España and Golfo de México on various maps and documents, and there are at least 32 different versions of the name in different languages and dialects, according to the United States Geological Survey.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Gulf of America now official name in Florida. When do books change?
