Apple Is Showing Indigenous Land on Maps
Apple Maps now shows the borders of Indigenous land in Australia and New Zealand.
Apple Newsroom:
Beginning today, Apple Maps now displays Indigenous lands in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. By gathering information from Indigenous advisors, cartographers, Traditional Owners, language holders, and community members, Apple Maps will show reserves and Indigenous Protected Areas, Indigenous place names, Traditional Country, and dual-language labels. Indigenous lands place cards feature information about the local area and Traditional Owners, and can be curated to allow communities to add their own photos, destinations on their land, and text in their own language. Representation of Indigenous lands in Apple Maps provides users with a more comprehensive experience while also recognising the stories and significance behind them.
According to the Guardian, dual place names have also been introduced throughout Australia.
Apple Maps will now include more than 250 dual placenames for cities and towns across the country, with more to be added.
I’m struggling to confirm this. On the latest versions of both macOS (15.3.2) and iOS (18.3.2), no traditional place names are shown instead or in addition to the English names. It’s technically feasible to show two names simultaneously for a location, as we’ve seen with Gulf-of-Mexico travesty—it just hasn’t been done.
When I search for “Naarm,” the traditional name of the Melbourne area, only “Melbourne” shows up as a match. Likewise, a search for “Gadigal” or “Cadigal” returns matches in the Sydney area, like “Gadigal Station,” but not Sydney itself.
Good publicity for Apple, but a job half done.