But aren’t those geographical features? The Hindu Kush is a mountain range, anyhow. We don’t say “Rockies” or “Himalaya Mountains” without the article. I still haven’t gotten used to hearing Ukraine or Congo, and I probably never will. One of the aspects of descriptive grammar is whether an article is needed in a given context, and with all due respect it doesn’t seem right that they should be telling us how to say the name of their country when we’re not using their language. On the other hand, given the extensive role played around the world by the English language, I begin to see their point.
Soon possibly to be known as “‘the’ country formerly known as Ukraine,” judging from news reports?
The Tyrol.
The Ohio State University
That’s a weird one. I wonder why its official name is Côte d’Ivoire, not La Côte d’Ivoire? And yet we translate it to The Ivory Coast.
‘Ivory Coast’ is the correct current English term for the country, not ‘The Ivory Coast’. In common with most other ‘the’ countries, references to a river or region, the modern day country views it as somehow downplaying their legitimacy as a country. The Gambia is an exception; the official name of the country is Republic of the Gambia but they don’t reject the ‘the’.
At one time the general area that’s now Togo and Benin was referred to by Europeans as ‘The Slave Coast’, to the west of it was ‘The Gold Coast’ (now Ghana) and further west ‘The Ivory Coast’.
Well, depends. Some like the CIA Factbook use “Cote d’Ivoire” in preference. No ‘the,’ and no circumflex, which looks weird like an alternative spelling of “cot.”
It looks to me like “the/la” refers to “République,” which is optional, and not “Côte.” So “the Republic” can be left off optionally.
I’ve often wondered why we say “The South of France” instead of just “Southern France.”
Oddly enough, there is an almost identical thread going on right now on the James Randi Educational Foundation message board – initial topic, " ‘The’ Ukraine, or not" – widening into other places with “The” in their titles. Someone there, liked the idea of “Czechistan”. I weighed in, with the perhaps flimsily-based notion / rumour of “Lekhistan” being a central-Asian / Middle Eastern term for Poland – whereby folks who use that, quite likely would indeed call the neighbouring country “Czechistan”.
This lore originates, I gather, from the legend of the northern Slavonic peoples coming originally from three brothers: Lech (Polish), Czech, and Rus – who quarrelled and did each other down in numerous ways – which stuff has gone on pretty well continuously from that day to this.
I kind-of get the picture that “The South of France” connotes particularly the famously glamorous / idyllic south-eastern corner of France: Provence / the Cote d’Azur / the Riviera. Other parts of the southern third / half of France – though replete with various kinds of delights in their own right – don’t get quite the “cachet” that the far south-east gets. This is probably not fair or rational – just, “people are funny, and perceive what they perceive”.
It really all does seem to come down to whether the speaker is referencing a region or a country. AFAIK, there is no country of the name, so it’s “the Caucasus”; in the US it’s “the West” or “the Northeast.” If a region *becomes *a country, it may take generations for the world to start calling it Congo or Caucasus or West or Ukraine.
Products from Stanley Tools that are made in Thailand are labeled:
“Made in The Thailand”.
Never saw that usage anywhere else.
Solomon Islands is a country that occupies most of the Solomon Islands.
The English-language press in Thailand officially uses Ivory Coast without “the” and not Cote d’Ivoire. But I used to hear “the” Ivory Coast in my younger days.
Haven’t seen that one myself. 
Also (the Independent State of) Samoa, which covers most (but not all) of the Samoan Islands. There is also American Samoa, where the people are nationals of (but not citizens of) the USA.
No, it’s “Caucasia”.
Also, I don’t care what the “official” English name of Czechia is, I call it Czechia.
How does that work? What is on their passports?
I think they’re US passports. From what I understand, they can’t vote and such, but if they go to the US they travel “without restrictions” (e.g. the normal manhandling we all get, no passport needed) and have a status sort of like a green card, making citizenship easier to get.
Whereas Puerto Ricans et al. are US citizens. They can’t vote in a lot of mainland matters, but it’s not tied to their person - they gain the rights when going to the 50 states, while a Minnesotan loses this if he moves to PR.
They all get crippled DC-style representatives.
There’s an endorsement that says something like “the bearer is not a United States citizen.”
I wonder how other countries treat that, like if there’s a country that allows US citizens to visit visa-free but requires visas for mere nationals.