How to make Google Maps display place names in English

Question

Google Maps displays some place names in the local language - particularly islands, so although the country name Italy is displayed in English for me, I get the island names Sardegna and Sicilia which haven't been localized away from Italian. How can you make Google Maps display these names in English?

Solution

It's not possible until Google makes labels use the name by which they're found by search. There are some strange omissions, such as the ones you point out. The omissions must be corrected by Google.

Specifically, some well-known larger islands and cities are missing their established English names, and popular resorts should have been given an English name by now. They are found by searching for the English name; strange that the label should differ. It will make travelers scratch their heads or maybe give up and get a tourist map. (Example: Crete.)

For manufacturers of physical globes, the level of detail is much lower, so that all places have been given names in the language for which it is issued.

For smaller islands and cities, or even quite major thoroughfares, the problem is that they've not been given an English name yet. This will leave only the local name in the country's language. Google couldn't be expected to solve that one until someone with knowledge of the local area makes maps where also small places are given English names (or transliterated). At least, it's hard to see how this could be automated by a script without causing major errors.

There could also be a technical problem/performance preset for handling enough reverse geocoding lookups required to serve all the displayed labels in real time, but that shouldn't be the issue for major points of interest such as your examples.

Comments

[Henrik Erlandsson]

These steps consistently reproduce the issue OP is having.

[Brendan]

My bad. Either I wasn't paying enough attention, or the behaviour has changed since I posted.