(La) India

[fglorca]

Quiero viajar a la India.

Do we need a definite article before ‘India’?
Many thanks in advance.

[dupond]

Hi fglorca

I'm not a native speaker, but I was just reading about when to use (and not use) the definite article. Apparently, there are some countries that are referred to with the definite article and India is one of them.

https://www.thoughtco.com/using-el-and-la-with-country-names-3079090

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

@Dupond: You are right.

There are names of places that are commonly associated with articles, but usage changes from region to region. Some of us wouldn't say "la Argentina" or "el Perú", but some will. Same with "la India", which sounds better for some of us, while others will just say "India". I think it's a new trend to abolish most articles before a country name, but I'm not sure it's a global trend.

Some places always associated with articles are:
-El Cairo
-La Habana
-La Paz
-Las Palmas
-El Salvador

According to the RAE, some of those that may or not be used with the article are listed here --many of which I have never seen with the article though--:
-(El) África
-(El) Asia
-(El) Afganistán
-(El) Brasil
-(El) Camerún
-(El) Canadá
-(El) Chad
-(El) Congo
-(El) Ecuador
-(El) Japón
-(El) Líbano
-(El) Pakistán
-(El) Paraguay
-(El) Perú
-(El) Senegal
-(El) Uruguay
-(El) Yemen
-(La) Argentina
-(La) China
-(La) India
-(La) Corea del Norte/Sur
-(Los) Estados Unidos

[fglorca]

Thanks so much.