Articles / Genders of Country Names in French
With few exceptions, all country names in French are preceded by the definite article: le, la, l’ or les.
1. Masculine Gender
The rule of thumb is that names of countries and regions ending in a consonant or a vowel (except -e) are masculine, for example:
- le Canada
- le Japon
- le Portugal
Exceptions from this rule:
- le Belize
- le Cambodge
- le Mexique
- le Mozambique
- le Suriname
- le Zaïre
- le Zimbabwe
These country names are not preceded by an article:
- Bahreïn
- Brunéi Darussalam
- Djibouti
- Haïti
- Israël
- Monaco
- Oman
- Saint-Kitts-et-Nevis
- Saint-Marin
- Saint-Vincent-et-les-Grenadines
- Singapour
- Tuvalu
- Vanuatu
Names of some countries and regions are derived from a common French noun. In that case, the gender of the country/region matches the gender of the noun. For example, le Royaume Uni is masculine because the noun le royaume is masculine in French.
2. Feminine Gender
The rule of thumb is that names of countries and regions ending in -e are feminine, for example:
- la France
- la Suisse
- la Belgique
- l’Allemagne
- l’Angleterre
- la Russie
- la Chine
These country names (mainly islands) are not preceded by an article:
- Chypre
- Cuba
- Kiribati
- Malte
- Madagascar
- Nauru
- Sao Tomé et Principe
- Sainte-Lucie
- Taïwan
- Trinité-et-Tobago
Names of some countries and regions are derived from a common French noun. In that case, the gender of the country/region matches the gender of the noun. For example, Union européenne is feminine because the noun l'union is feminine. For the same reason, la Réunion is feminine in French.
Names of all continents are feminine in French:
- l'Afrique
- l'Amérique du Nord
- l'Amérique du Sud
- l'Antarctique
- l'Arctique
- l'Asie
- l'Australie
- l'Europe
3. Plural
Countries and regions named after a common French noun in plural like states (états), countries (pays) and islands (îles) are preceded with the article les:
- les Émirats arabes unis
- les États-Unis (d’Amérique), les É-U
- les Îles Cook
- les Îles Féroé
- les Îles Marshall
- les Îles Salomon
- les Pays-Bas
Furthermore, names of countries which are a collection of various states or islands are preceded by article les:
- les Bahamas
- les Comores
- les Fidji
- les Maldives
- les Philippines
- les Seychelles
- les Tonga