It seems that country-names have political meanings. From the papers:

To this day, many Russians deny that a separate Ukranian nation exists. The Poles ... saw it as their historical eastern frontier; Ukraine literally means borderland. In Polish one stilll says "na Ukrainie," on as opposed to in Ukraine, suggesting a territorial identity, little more. With that in mind, on Dec. 1, 1991, when the country secured its independence for the first time, the new rulers decreed that "the Ukraine" simply be called Ukraine in English, without the demeaning article.

So, by that standard it is demeaning to call our country THE United States of America? Nah - I guess it's the border thing. Interesting, Shu! Thanks for sharing!

The Germans call Switzerland die Schweiz, and I assume Swiss germanophones do likewise. Since Ukrainian, like Russian, doesn't have articles, how can they be sure it's demeaning. Foolishness. Also, Ukraine doesn't mean anything like border in English; it means the name of a country in the former USSR/Russian Empire.

Still, it's interesting to me that some cities and countries have articles, and some don't. While CW is right we do say "the United States of America," we surely don't say "the America" or "the England," yet we do say "the United Kingdom." We say "the Netherlands" and "the Hague," but "Norway" and "Paris." The only 2 that make a little sense to me is "the United States" and "the United Kingdom" because of the "united" concept.

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Originally posted by shufitz:
It seems that country-names have political meanings. From the papers:To this day, many Russians deny that a separate Ukranian nation exists.

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Isn't it a verb? I krane, U krane, he, she,it kranes, we krane, you (pl) krane, they krane.

English uses 'the' either when there's an explicit toponym with a qualifier (the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the River Rhine, the Baltic Sea, the Mendip Hills), or in many cases where there's an implicit toponym: either one of the above with it omitted (the Rhine, the Baltic), or where the toponym isn't normally used (the Cairngorms [mountains], the Solent [straight]).

This has been made official in the country name of The Gambia, where the Gambia is the river running through it; on the other hand the countries of Maldives and Solomon Islands both specify that there's no 'the' in their name.

However there are also some regions where it's not obvious (to me, because I don't know the local geography enough) what the underlying toponym is, if any: the Dordogne, the Ardenne.

How intriguing that soon after saying, "It seems that country-names have political meanings," I should run into this example.

Is 'the United States' a singular entity or a plural entity? Does one say, "The United States are doing thus-and-so," or "The United States is doing thus-and-so"? Obviously, the answer reflects the degree to which the individual states are viewed as autonomous entites -- the underlying issue of our Civil War.

This came to mind from a book review, in the newspaper, of 1812 by Walter R. Borneman, which deals with the War of 1812:

Mr. Borneman says that, after 1812, "the United States as a plural term for the 18 disparate states had become a singular term for one united nation." Oddly, historian Shelby Foote has said the same thing about the "singular" U.S. emerging at the conclusion of the Civil War, 50 years later.

It would be interesting to know when this usage did in fact evolve.