# The use of "the" in place names. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 8, 2004, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910 "2004-08-08T19:25:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910/1 "2004-08-08T19:25:06Z")
This question was asked of me by my 12 year old son, and I didn’t have an answer for him, so I’m turning it over to the teeming millions. Some place names are preceeded by “the” but not others. For example we say \*the \* Pacific Ocean, \*the \* Brazos River, \*the \* Rocky Mountains, but just Deer Creek, Lake Michigan, Pikes Peak, etc. There seems to be a general rule that the larger the geographic entity, the more likely that its name will be prefaced with “the”. What is really odd is that whatever the rule is, it never seems to be broken. You never hear someone saying “We went swimming in Pacific Ocean” or “I went swimming in \*the \* Lake Michigan”. ---
**Author:** ![Joe\_Random](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Joe\_Random](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Random)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910/2 "2004-08-08T19:33:23Z")
Off the top of my head, it seems like “the” is only used when the first word of a multi-word place name is an adjective. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910/3 "2004-08-08T19:57:39Z")
Then there’s places like [The Woodlands, TX](http://www.thewoodlandstx.com/). ---
**Author:** ![wolfstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d6d6ee/32.png) [@wolfstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfstu)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910/4 "2004-08-08T20:03:47Z")
> [@Joe Random](#): > > Off the top of my head, it seems like “the” is only used when the first word of a multi-word place name is an adjective. Such as The Hague 😉 Really, I agree. It has a lot to do with the adjective coming first. There are exceptions, though… you’ll hear that something happened "on… The Pacific Ocean The Cataraqui River Lake Michigan Mount Logan Yonge Street But occasionally: The river Nile The Plains of Abraham And, in the opposite case, Big Trout Lake … and probably some others. Usually there’s a ‘the’ for rivers and oceans, but not for lakes, streets, and mountains. But sometimes there are. I’m not sure what to make of it, aside from a couple of places being famous enough to be different. ---
**Author:** ![wolfstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d6d6ee/32.png) [@wolfstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfstu)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910/5 "2004-08-08T20:05:00Z")
> [@Jeff Olsen](#): > > Then there’s places like [The Woodlands, TX](http://www.thewoodlandstx.com/). And [The Pas](http://www.thepas.com/), Manitoba. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910/6 "2004-08-08T20:13:41Z")
Don’t forget Da Bronx. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910/7 "2004-08-08T20:45:34Z")
I don’t think it’s dependent on the placement of the adjetive. No lakes that I know of start with _the_: Lake Travis Inks Lake Lake Buchanan Town Lake Lake Michigan Oil Mill Lake All rivers start with the: The Brazos River The Rio Grande The River Nile or the Nile River Cities, towns and states don’t use _the_ regardless of an adjective. (The Woodlands was developed in the early '70s, and the name was given a preceeding “the” as a marketing ploy): Dallas New York South Dakota Grand Salina But general areas do: The Dakotas The Balcones Fault The Plains of Georgia Salt water bodies seem to vary more or less by size: The Pacific Ocean The Straights of Magellan The Gulf of Mexico but ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910/8 "2004-08-08T20:47:29Z")
Oops… but Norton Sound Tampa Bay ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910/9 "2004-08-08T20:53:50Z")
Is there a common rule concerning the use of the word “the” in regards to buildings? For instance, while a certain very big building in New York City is always called “The Empire State Building”, the place where the New York Mets play their home games is never called “The Shea Stadium.” ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910/10 "2004-08-08T20:56:30Z")
Oregon has a town called The Dalles, Then of coures, there is The Hauge. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910/11 "2004-08-08T21:22:53Z")
This is an interesting thread. It kinds of made me wonder why I had never wondered aobut it before, if you see what I mean.Regarding mountains and lakes, now I know just diggin out one or two exceptions will get us nowehre, bbut… My first reaciton was to agree that these never have “the” as part of the name, closely followed (predictably enough) by remembering that here in Scotland we have a hil;/mountain named “The Rest and Be Thankful”. I can’t think of other examples but I I have been giving it much thought, (though it will probably keep me awake al night wondering about it 🙂 ) Lakes - still in Scotland, we have one named “The Lake of Menteith”, wheres other lochs are all simply Loch Lomond, Loch Nevis and so on. (The Lake of Menteith is actually our only “lake” too, but I digress.) ---
**Author:** ![wolfstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d6d6ee/32.png) [@wolfstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfstu)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910/12 "2004-08-08T21:39:44Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > Oregon has a town called The Dalles, Then of coures, there is The Hauge. As mentioned above. But chances are “The Hague” comes from the natives’ name for the place - “Den Haag”. (Oh, and don’t get me started on the ignorant peers of mine who insisted the place was called “La Haye”, and _Not_ The Hague… because place names don’t translate with languages and La Haye is the _real_ name. :mad: ) ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910/13 "2004-08-08T23:51:43Z")
Noodling out a few more rules: Nearly all plural place names seem to take articles: the Rocky Mountains, the Netherlands, the Two Sicilies, the Queen Charlotte Islands, etc. Country names that contain a political form in the name have an article: the Indian Union, the People’s Republic of China, the United Kingdom, the French Republic, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Individual mountains don’t: Mount Logan, Pikes Peak. Placenames containing a noun that _isn’t_ a usual generic (such as lake, river, etc.) often have an article: the Canadian Shield, the Devil’s Punchbowl. Bays have an article when the bay comes first (the Bay of Fundy) but not when it comes after (Hudson Bay, James Bay). Likewise for islands: the Isle of Wight, but Prince Edward Island. Both “the Georgia Strait” and “Georgia Strait” are used, but there’s always an article for a preceding strait: “the Straits of Gibraltar.” Gulfs have articles (the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence). Seas and oceans have articles: the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the Sea of Cortez. A few geographical features that just have a single name have articles: the Bosporus, the Hellespont, the Crimea. ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910/14 "2004-08-09T00:48:24Z")
related. Here in Los Angeles, we refer to the freeways with “the” in front of the name or number. “Take the 405 to the 5, get off at the Griffith Park exit. If you get to the Ventura Freeway, you’ve gone too far.” However, Northern Californians don’t. They take 80 to 280, or whathaveyou, instead of the 80 to the 280. Howcome? I have my theories, but they’re mostly based in NoCal-SoCal rivalry and the chance to get in a dig at Northerners, so I’ll not repeat them. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910/15 "2004-08-09T01:07:36Z")
Don’t some place names have articles because they were named after specific places or things within their borders? For instance, The Hague ('s Gravenhaag) means The (Duke’s) Hedge. And while they usually don’t say The Congo or The Gambia anymore, weren’t both those countries named for the rivers they contain? So, originally, someone would have said, I’m going to the Congo, meaning that he was going to explore or navigage the Congo River, and then that name came to be applied to the whole country. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910/16 "2004-08-09T01:16:56Z")
When the Ukraine became independent in 1991, its government issued a notice to the world to drop the “the”.\* Now it’s just plain “Ukraine.” A cynic like myself would note that the Ukrainian language doesn’t have a definite article. But the explanation given was that “the” in a place name is used for a region or a subunit. They dropped it to emphasize that they were a full-fledged nation in their own right. The same thing happened with Sudan’s name in 1992: they officially went from being “the Sudan” in English to just plain “Sudan.” The weird thing about this is that the country’s name in Arabic still uses the definite article: al-Sûdân. They only dropped it in English, not in Arabic. Why this selective deletion? Some definite articles used to be used in country names, but have long since been forgotten in English: Argentina was once called “the Argentine”; why, I have no idea. Argentina just sounds better. Yemen (in Arabic, al-Yaman) was once called “the Yemen”, perhaps reflecting the Arabic definite article in its name — but no more in English. Lebanon, before it became a country in 1943, was once called “the Lebanon” (its name in Arabic, Lubnân, does not use the article). But I think “the Lebanon” actually referred not to the country but to the highland massif now known as Mount Lebanon. \*Band name! ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910/17 "2004-08-09T03:46:16Z")
> [@bnorton](#): > > I don’t think it’s dependent on the placement of the adjetive. No lakes that I know of start with _the_ The Great Salt Lake. Which actually seems to go both ways, with the _The_ and without. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910/18 "2004-08-09T03:59:52Z")
**Otto** , I’ve never heard the Great Salt Lake referred to without the article. Just saying it out loud without it sounds totally foreign to me. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910/19 "2004-08-09T04:49:45Z")
> [@Oni no Maggie](#): > > Here in Los Angeles, we refer to the freeways with “the” in front of the name or number. “Take the 405 to the 5, get off at the Griffith Park exit. If you get to the Ventura Freeway, you’ve gone too far.” I’ve always heard “the” before named roads, but never before numbered ones. And by the way, there’s \*\*Los \*\*Angeles and \*\*Las \*\*Vegas and \*\*El \*\* Paso. ---
**Author:** ![Hometownboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5e9695/32.png) [@Hometownboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hometownboy)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910/20 "2004-08-09T05:44:08Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > Oregon has a town called The Dalles, Then of coures, there is The Hauge. This SDMBer is a resident of The Dalles, Oregon. in fact, I’m a former president of the chamber of commerce, though that was decades past. There’s a quaint little ritual we go through when explaining the name of the town to someone from, say, the East Coast. “No, it’s two words. Yes, the “the” is part of the name. That’s right. T-H-E D-A-L-L-E-S. No, not Dallas. The final vowel is an “e,” not an “a.” Otherwise, it might end up in the Willamette Valley town Dallas, Oregon.” We can blame the French for our name: this is the word, from According to Oregon Geographic Names, 6th Edition by Lewis L. McArthur, p.594 > [@](#): > > The name The Dalles is derived from the French word dalle, meaning flagstone, and was applied to the narrows of the Columbia River, above the present city of The Dalles, by French-Canadian employees of the fur companies. Among other things, dalle meant a stone used to flag gutters, and the peculiar basalt formations along the narrows doubtless suggested gutters. The word dalles signified to the voyageurs, the river rapids flowing swiftly through a narrow channel over flat, basaltic rocks. The first use of the name Dalles in Oregon was in 1814. The name La Grande Dalle de la Columbia became established. Although the city is officially Dalles City, the post office, and common usage is The Dalles. It has had several names since incorporation: Dalles, 1851; Wascopum, 1853; The Dalles, 1860. The Indians in the area called the area near Mill Creek, in present day The Dalles, Quenett, which was also their word for trout. Lewis and Clark camped here in 1806 and named it Rockfort Camp. Another Indian name in use was Win-quatt, signifying a place encircled by rock cliffs. Hope that’s helpful. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-the-in-place-names/258910.md?page=2)