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Using the definite article before a country/state name

Hearing the Ukraine used to make me unsure whether Ukraine was really a country. Now though I have realized Ukraine to be a country on the same level as Austria, for instance, I still don't understand why it is often the Ukraine in English, but never the Austria or the Poland. Where did that odd phrase come from, and why is it in use?

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Daniel
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    Haven't you heard of The United States, and The United Kingdom? Why did it have to be the Ukraine that raised your curiosity? – karthik Feb 21 '12 at 17:16
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    Yes, but kingdom and states are words by themselves, so the United States and the United Kingdom sound natural. The Ukraine doesn't follow. – Daniel Feb 21 '12 at 17:17
  • How about The Yukon? – slim Feb 21 '12 at 17:21
  • @slim: it's a territory, not a country ... :) – Frantisek Feb 21 '12 at 17:25
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    Interesting that all of those examples start with a U sound: The United States, The United Kingdom, The Ukraine, The Yukon. I wonder if it is a pronunciation aid. – Kit Z. Fox Feb 21 '12 at 17:32
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    @KitFox The Hague. – Henrik N Feb 21 '12 at 18:00
  • What the... I was just thinking about this question a few days ago! (Not normally on this SE, but this is now a "hot question") – Izkata Feb 21 '12 at 18:57
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    The Bahamas. The Czech Republic. The United Arab Emirates. I've heard both "Congo" and "the Congo", and "Gambia" and "the Gambia". I have no idea what the rule is. I doubt there is one, it's probably just the conventions of each country. – Jay Feb 21 '12 at 19:03
  • @karthik The untied stats? What? No, never heard of them. Is it a real country? :-) – Jay Feb 21 '12 at 19:04
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    "The Lebanon" used to be said in the 80's and maybe before. I definitely remember hearing it in British news reports, during the (civil) war there. Not sure why it fell out of use. BTW, @Jay - The 'untied stats' sounds like a loose collection of random statistics... ;-) – Greenonline Jul 12 '15 at 09:31
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    I would say that "The Czech Republic" and "The Unite Arab Emirates" fall under the same umbrella as the "United Kingdom/States" as there is a definite noun included within the name, not just a proper noun. It feels a little more legitimate to question "The Gambia/Lebanon/Congo/Bahamas" IMHO. I think it could be due, in part, to a difference in British and American english, TBH. – Greenonline Jul 12 '15 at 10:35
  • The Netherlands – GEdgar Jul 12 '15 at 12:58
  • As a German, I propose The Germany. Just imagine the possibilities: "Vettel of The Germany just resigned...", "The Germany - 12 points!", etc. – phresnel Nov 28 '22 at 14:57

3 Answers3

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It was referred to as the Ukraine when it was a part of the former Soviet Union. Since they were split apart and Ukraine became a country it should properly be called Ukraine without the definite article.

Note:

The name Ukraine, which first appeared in the historical chronicles in 1187, has been common in the English language for almost 350 years. In the earliest years it appeared without the definite article 'the' but in this century the definite article increasingly preceded the name Ukraine. ... many Ukrainian immigrant scholars, due to their imperfect knowledge of English, used the form 'the Ukraine' in their books thus helping to perpetuate this usage.

Ukrainians who understood why Soviets were using the article 'the' complained. In Russian, obviously, the word 'Ukraina' has no article. Since the Soviet Union broke apart, Ukrainians have been pushing very hard to have the article 'the' removed from the English translation, so as to be linguistically correct, ie to show that Ukraine is a separate, independent country, not part of another country.

~ Source

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Frantisek
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    It is quite true in the case of Ukraine, but there are circumstances under which the article is expected and unrelated to independence or imperialism, such as collectives (The Philippines, St. Vincent and the Grenadines) or names that are or originated in descriptive phrases (the Czech Republic, the United Arab Emirates). El Salvador is yet another matter. – choster Feb 21 '12 at 18:04
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The name 'Ukraina' means borderland, and that may explain the presence of the definite article in some English appellations, but the name of the country is simply ‘Ukraine’.

Barrie England
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  • Reminds me a bit of the Welsh marches. If you’ve got all day, look up *Welsh* in the OED3: they wrote a book about it. – tchrist Feb 21 '12 at 18:48
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    The name 'Ukraina' doesn't mean borderland in neither Ukrainian nor Russian languages. The closest word in Ukrainian language is 'kraina' which means 'country'. – Volodymyr Frolov Oct 23 '16 at 14:50
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    Also in both Russian and Ukrainian language there is a word 'krai' which could mean either 'border' or 'land'. In Russian language there is an idiom 'Rodnoi krai' which means 'the motherland' and it never means 'the border land'. The word 'krai' also used to refer to Federal subjects of Russia, e.g. Krasondar Krai. – Volodymyr Frolov Oct 23 '16 at 15:11
  • The term "kraj" in other Slavic languages also means "home" or "my land". For example, Poland has "Armia Krajowa" - a resistance movement during WW2. It is translated as "Home Army". – Sergiy Mar 28 '19 at 04:29
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Simply put, it was named "The Ukraine" back when it was part of the Soviet Union but removed the article after the Iron Curtain fell.

When the region formerly known as “The Ukraine” split off from the old Soviet Union, it declared its preference for dropping the article, and the country is now properly called simply “Ukraine.”

Greenonline
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Sean Duggan
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  • I wouldn't necessarily talk about the Iron Curtain, but grammatically, you're right :) – Frantisek Feb 21 '12 at 17:20
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    Pedantry: the Iron Curtain fell in the early-mid 20th Century, and was raised in the late 1980s. – slim Feb 21 '12 at 17:25
  • @slim I'm not sure the association with a theatre curtain (that is raised and then falls) makes much sense, and I do hope the Iron Curtain is not still hovering somewhere above us, ready to fall again. The steel bars of a cell (or the infamous border wall) seem a more fitting analogy. – Lebenita Nov 05 '22 at 09:23