Place Names with Definite Articles

Fantastic topic. One that is missing is "the moon". We always refer to our moon as the moon, while the moon's name is Moon. I'm sure my argument is not entirely appropriate as we are referring to "the moon" as a name of the thing. We don't call Mars, the Mars, as it is a planet and a noun. Also, we have "The United States" but have Russia or the (former) Soviet Union. Is it Congo or the Congo? This leads to the topic that knowing when to use "a" or "the" in front of a noun (most always) is a huge stumbling block for many non native speakers in understanding the English language. What is even odder, is in Great Britain, as I hear it on the BBC, I find that definite/indefinite articles are often dropped in front of nouns They don't say they are going to "a hospital" or "the hospital" but simply "hospital". Honestly, it seems pretty odd.

Don't forget The Dalles, Oregon, a small (and miserable, by many accounts) town on the Colombia Gorge not all that far from Portland. Here's what I know about The Dalles: it's home to the sick, fantastic comic artist John Callahan, and there is no good explanation for its name. Please correct me, Oregonians.

From the link:

"The city of The Dalles, Ore.—familiar as the last stop on the Oregon Trail to anyone who played the eponymous computer game—is named for rock formations along the Columbia River."

With The Hague I find it even more complicated and confusing.
If someone from that place fills in his or her place of living, he or she can fill in "The Hague", "Den Haag" or " 's-Gravenhage", while they may use phonetially "De Haag"(let's see if I can find English comparatively correct sounds for this...) with "De" pronouced as in "The" and "Haag" with the "H" as in "hood", the "aa" as in a long stretched "a" in the word "Harbour" and the "G" as in the famous Dutch name "SCHeveningen" with it's guttural scraping like compinging "g" "r" and "h"together to "gggg". Some computers will accept all 3 forms, others will only accept the last one sice that is the official one.

Funny is that in different languages different rules apply even as to how countries are named- Not withstanding what the place itself says what it should be- in some languages the definite article is put in there or discarded just as the custom in that language sees fit. So in Dutch it still is used as THE Ukraïne.

Oh and about the U.S.A.- Is it allowed to use "The United States", "The U.S." or "the U.S.A", or must we ever use "The United States Of America"...?

i think U.S.A. would be more correct, since there where other united states back in the day. The netherlands started out as one.

Indeed. As are Germany, Belgium, to some extent Italy and Spain...

Oh and with The Netherlands there is this confusion of naming in that lots of people outside Europe still don't know the name of that country- Is it "Netherlands" like is seen on postcard-adresses, "The Netherlands" like officially but then sometimes you get glazed confused looks and then you have to say "Holland" to make things clear but that only covers 2 provinces of The Netherlands......

@Foreigner1

Really? When I was there with my family the locals pronounced it more like "Hog".

@ gauldar:

to make it even more confusing the locals decided that they use their own dialect type. :)

In some cases at least, the decision whether to use the definite articule was made through consultation between embassies of Anglophone countries and officials of the country concerned. This was done after Zaire (originally the Belgian Congo, then the Congo) took back its former name after the ouster of Mobutu, who'd chosen to rename it Zaire. The decision was made at that point to call it "Congo", not "The Congo." I have the impression the same procedure occurred in Gambia and Sudan.

Another factor for The Hague, I believe, is that one-syllable placenames are rare. Naming a town "Haag" would just be odd, as it needs an article (compare a town named "Hedge" in English speaking countries) and the single syllable is metrically awkward as well. But we do have towns named "Beek" ("Brook").

In most cities highways are called simply by their number, or "highway #". But in LA and the inland empire highways are called "The #"

The Dalles IS NOT a miserable place. Let's just call it an un-gentrified, yet-to-be-ruined-by-yuppies gem of a town.

The origin of its name is well documented. Prior to inundation by the backwaters of The Dalles Dam in 1957, the Columbia River flowed through a narrow, tortuous, rocky course just upstream of the present location of City of The Dalles. French-Canadian fur traders named this feature "Les Grandes Dalles de la Columbie," which translates to "The Great Flagstone [-lined Gutter] of the Columbia" in English. Over time, the name evolved to "Les Grandes Dalles," "Les Dalles," and finally "The Dalles." The official name of the city had been "Dalles City" but was changed to "City of The Dalles" in 1967. The USPS has always used the unofficial name "The Dalles" to refer to this town. CASE CLOSED!