Why do we use the article "the" when referring to countries like Philippines, United States?

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mrym

because it is called "the republic of the philippines"..... which means the republic is composed of all the provinces in luzon, visayas and mindanao regions, each province being independent of each other to form one country. it is plural because it is composed of more than one province .....they are a group of provinces all together being part of one...... therefore, more than one, therefore...... plural and since you are talking about a specific country then you use "the" before it.

example: group of students..... you say ...the group of students came to class together.... since you are referring to a specific group as oppose to saying .....a group of students came to class together.... this means, any group not a specific group or in this case, a specific recognized country "the philippines" short cut for "the republic of the philippines".

just like in the united states of america....it is composed of a group of 50 states each independent of each other forming one country. that is why each province in the philippines or each state in the united states has its own governor and legislative group independent from the other states. each state or province have its senators and congressmen that rule together as one body which is congress.

remember, the former USSR? today, it has been divided into independed countries and russian was only one part of it. you do not say "the russian" anymore but it used to be the USSR, a country composed of group of states united and socialistic encomprising the whole of the soviet as a union.

also, when we refer to china it is "the republic of china" as it is composed of a group of provinces.....but in this case, no one says "the china" because in past history, china was one large and big country ruled by monarchy and when mao tze tung took over, the name "china" just stuck without using "the" before it.

you never say "the germany" or "the spain" but you say "the united kingdom" which is composed of england, wales and scotland all united together to form one country each having representatives in the parliament.

mmd

Plurals.

bullwinkle

The pluralizing "s" on the end prompts it, as a way to differentiate it from the possessive form. A better question is, "Why do they refer to Bronx County as THE Bronx?" It isn't done for Queens County.

BlueBox

nothing to do with plural forms. or the fact that it's a group of states or islands. we don't call our ASEAN neighbor "the indonesia", do we?

removing the "the" doesn't make it incorrect either. imagine if in the next miss universe pageant, the winner is "miss the philippines". :-)

i think it's more style and common/prescribed usage than grammar rule. after all, "made in the united states" is no more correct than "made in USA".

Monkeyman

You don't just say 'United States', you say 'The United States'. There are other groups of united 'states', such as in Eastern Europe, so to distinguish, you would say 'The United States of America'.

Articles: In English the definite article is the, the indefinite article is a or an, and their force is generally to impart specificity to the noun or to single out the referent from the class named by the noun.

The: [Is] used to mark a proper noun, natural phenomenon, ship, building, time, point of the compass, branch of endeavor, or field of study as something well-known or unique): the sun; the Alps; the Queen Elizabeth; the past; the West.

Beachman

Has something to do with the fact that the examples you mentioned are in plural form as opposed to United Kigdom, Germany, Russia, Japan......all are singular.

ryan g

i was also asking the same question last night to my friend. what about,
"made in the china"
"made in the taiwan"
"people in the australia"
?????????????
I don't know.......

;)

Because the "s" at the end of the names suggest they are plural. Simply correct grammer.

Beck

Because its a proper noun

rhemzis

i think the article 'the' encompasses the parts. the philippines is an archipelago, and it was used to be called philippine isalnds. now to refer to it as a whole, we have THE philippines, as it is the same case for THE united states, THE bahamas, etc.

martina

Because it's plural. You never add an article when you speak of one single state (except the Vatican City, god knows why;-)

The (51 or so) United States
The (I don't know how many) Philippine Islands
The Netherlands (12 provinces together)

Think of a country with many islands like
the Virgin Islands, the Baleares, the Canary Islands, the Sychelles, the Bahamas

simply because those countries have the word "of". for example: The Republic of the Philippines, The united States of America.

vanamont7

Possibly because it sounds mo' bettuh or gooder.

c_wilson2k5

Because it sounds right.

Dave Star

To differentiate one from the rest. It commands respect, like Mr. Ms., etc. for a person.

The United States of America and Canada.

Malaysia and The Philippines.

Muck Rakers Local #227

They are both proper nouns, and both plural. There are several United States, there are several islands of the Philippines.

dollhaus

We use the "the" when there are actual things involved. For the US, it's States. For the Phiilippines, it's from The Philippine Islands, and islands are the things.

We would also say "the" with United Kingdom (the thing is the kingdom) and Netherlands (the things are the nether (low) lands). For The Gambia, the thing is the Gambia River.

ADDED:

The plurals have absolutely nothing to do with it. See examples above.

There may be some more out there.

ADDED II: English has two types of nouns - common and proper. We say "the dog" and "the house" and "the kingdom" but not "the Wilson" or "the Fred" or "the France" or "the Bulgaria." But some countries have names in which a common noun (kingdom, states, islands) has been raised to the status of a proper noun. We want to (and do) continue using the article when these used-to-be common nouns occur as part of a country's name, or even when we unconsciously put one there, as in the Philippines. We say "the United Kingdom" and "the United States and "the Philippine(s) [Islands]", mentally adding the missing noun "islands."

As another example, we would say "South Africa." No problem. But we would also say "the Union of South Africa." Adding that noun, even though it is now capitalized as a proper noun, brings out the "the."

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