Washington, D.C. Is Not Called That on Google Maps — Why Is D.C. Missing?

It's fair to say that, while Google Maps has totally revolutionized how many of us get around the world, it also has its fair share of quirks. Users are certainly entitled to be mad or freaked out by any feature on the platform, even if that feature might make sense from at least some perspective.

Recently, though, Google Maps users have gotten freaked out because Washington, D.C. doesn't seem to be labeled properly on the app. Here's what we know about why it doesn't say Washington, D.C.

As people have posted about on TikTok, if you look up Washington, D.C. in Google Maps (and in fact in most of the other major navigation apps), you will be sent to the city, but it will just be labeled "Washington."

While some people think that there might be a conspiratorial or at the very least political reason for this, the reason is actually quite simple.

If you look up Atlanta or Philadelphia, those cities are not labeled Atlanta, Ga., or Philadelphia, Pa. for the same reason. Washington is just labeled as the city, not as the city with the district that it exists within.

Of course, Washington is silly because the city and the district have the same borders, but the reason it's not labeled Washington, D.C. is simply because Google does not label its cities anywhere with the broader territory they exist within.

In fact, if you look at the info that pops up underneath the map for Washington, D.C., you will see that Google acknowledges it as part of the District of Columbia. The app is not hiding the ball or being cute or anything else. Instead, it's just labeling the city consistently with the way all of the cities on the map are labeled. It might seem strange in this case because of how we usually refer to Washington, D.C., but it's not as odd as it might seem.

Although the labeling of Washington isn't actually a political choice, Google is occasionally confronted with the political realities of labeling various areas of the world. The choice of what to call Gaza, for example, caused some controversy after the war in that territory broke out.

The same will be true of the boundaries of Ukraine, which Russia has been disputing for more than three years.

Google Maps has to make some controversial decisions, and they are going to get some blowback whatever they decide. In this case, though, there's no real controversy to be had outside of the simple fact that Washington, D.C.'s status is confusing.

It's the nation's capital, but it doesn't have representation in Congress and doesn't exist within a state. As a result, its labeling on maps might be a bit confusing as well, even if that labeling also happens to be consistent with how every other American city is labeled.