Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says her government won’t rule out filing a civil lawsuit against Google if it continues to follow Donald Trump on the renamed “Gulf of America”.

The stretch of sea between north-eastern Mexico and the south-eastern US has long been known globally as the Gulf of Mexico.

But it’s been in the geopolitical spotlight after the US President unilaterally declared soon after taking office that he was changing its name.

On Thursday (local time) Sheinbaum said Trump’s decree was restricted to the “continental shelf of the United States” because Mexico still controls much of the Gulf.

“We have sovereignty over our continental shelf,” she said.

Google followed Trump within a week, declaring it was in line with its “long-standing practice” of applying name changes when updated by government sources.

Sheinbaum said despite her government writing to the tech giant saying it was “wrong” and “the entire Gulf of Mexico cannot be called the Gulf of America”, Google had stuck with its change.

It was not immediately clear where such a suit would be filed.

As of Thursday (US time), how the Gulf appears on Google Maps depends on the user’s location and other data.

Users in the US see the body of water labelled as Gulf of America. If the user is physically in Mexico, it will appear as the Gulf of Mexico. In many other countries across the world, it appears as “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)”.

A search by The New Daily on Friday found both names appeared.

A gulf of two names – how Google presents to users in Australia. Image: Google Maps

Sheinbaum has repeatedly defended the name Gulf of Mexico, saying its use dates to 1607 and is recognised by the United Nations.

She has also mentioned that, according to the constitution of Apatzingán, the antecedent to Mexico’s first constitution, the North American territory was previously identified as “Mexican America”.

Sheinbaum has used the example to poke fun at Trump and underscore the international implications of changing the Gulf’s name.

In that sense, Sheinbaum said the Mexican government would ask Google to make “Mexican America” pop up on the map when searched.

This is not the first time Mexicans and Americans have disagreed on the names of key geographic areas, including the border river between Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas.

Mexico calls it Rio Bravo and for the US it is the Rio Grande.

This week, the White House barred Associated Press reporters from several events, including some in the Oval Office, saying it was because of the news agency’s policy on the name.

AP is using Gulf of Mexico but also acknowledging Trump’s renaming. It says this is to ensure that names of geographical features are recognisable around the world.

-with AAP