Google Maps users report Canadian parks being labelled ‘state parks’

Google Maps users have started complaining about provincial parks being labelled as state parks in Canada.

CTV News reports a user’s reaction: “This alarming revelation has stirred many who have noticed. I would like to draw attention to this disgusting display of American oppression of Canadian culture and autonomy. We are proud to be Canadian and will remain so despite attempts like this from our ever increasingly hostile neighbours to the south.”

However, I learned more about what’s happening after speaking with Google.

“We have not made any recent changes to the way we label parks in Canada – the vast majority of these parks have had their existing labels for several years. We’re actively working to update labels for parks in Canada to avoid confusion,” according to a Google spokesperson.

Further, Google says that it has many park labels in its systems, and because state parks and provincial parks are similar (both managed by the government), they are sometimes used interchangeably in Google’s backup.

I’ve looked around myself and haven’t seen a lot of parks in Ontario labeled as ‘state parks,’ and are all provincial. It’s possible that Google has already made the change for some parks around me.

Google Maps recently changed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in the U.S. and has it labelled Canada as the Gulf of America in brackets. Potentially, users are noticing the ‘state parks’ now because of fear of Google ‘Americanizing’ Maps in Canada.

Source: CTV News