MapQuest skyrockets on app stores after ‘Lake America’ refusal

• MapQuest, the self-proclaimed “OG of online mapping,” says it’s sticking with “Lake Ontario.”
• Its usage has skyrocketed 50x, the company tells BI.
• It all started as a “joke about being so old we don’t know how to update our maps.”

It’s 2026, and all things late ’90s and early 2000s are cool again. Including, apparently, MapQuest.

The self-proclaimed “OG of online mapping” has shot up to the fourth-most-downloaded free program on Apple’s App Store in the US. It’s the most-downloaded Apple app in Canada and the 21st most popular free app on Google Play Store, according to AppFigures.

MapQuest’s renaissance comes after the free online mapping service wrote several posts saying it will continue to label the easternmost Great Lake as “Lake Ontario.” The move rejects the Trump Administration’s Thursday executive order that “immediately” renamed the body of water between New York and Ontario “Lake America” in the federal government’s official database of place names.

Google Maps changed the lake’s name for American users on Sunday, while Apple Maps has — so far — kept the Ontario moniker.

That could change, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox News on Monday. Trump “has reached out to Apple directly,” he said, adding that we could see app updates “coming soon.”

In 2025, Apple and Google both updated their map labels, renaming the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America” after a similar executive order.

MapQuest, which started in 1996, became popular before smartphones became widespread. American families could ask the computer-based service for turn-by-turn directions to a destination hours away and then print them before hitting the road. AOL scooped up the service in 2000 for $1.1 billion.

It quickly became obsolete as GPS-enabled phones rose in popularity, giving drivers on-the-spot directions, even if they took a wrong turn. Google Maps surpassed MapQuest in popularity by 2008.

The old platform told Business Insider it initially decided to keep the Gulf of Mexico’s name “as a joke about being so old we don’t know how to update our maps.”

Now, MapQuest says it’s seen a 50x surge in usage — and won’t switch either body of water’s name.

“People spoke with their downloads,” Doug Berger, the general manager of MapQuest, said. “They want a mapping app with names they’re familiar with.”

Google Maps, meanwhile, is the 19th most popular Apple app in America, 14 slots behind MapQuest.