The

Someone has an issue with me surrounding the use of ‘the’ as in ‘the Guangdong Province’. I think ‘the’ shouldn’t be used in front of a province’s name, and that person disagrees. Please tell me who is right on this.

You, of course, can put it as the Province of Guangdong. But when it comes to Guangdong Province, should 'the' be used really?

Thank you.

I had a similar problem with someone from the Ukraine.

Is the Ukraine a country or a region?

This is an important question, because Russians think that the Ukraine is a region of Russia.

So, for a Ukrainian Nationalist, whether you refer to 'the Urkraine' or not, is very important.

Some country names are preceded by an article—like “The United States” and “La France”—but most are not. Sometimes it depends on what language you are speaking: in English we call the latter country simply “France” and “La República Argentina” is just “Argentina” although in the nineteenth century the British often referred to it as “The Argentine.”

When the region formerly known as “The Ukraine” split off from the old Soviet Union, it declared its preference for dropping the article, and the country is now properly called simply “Ukraine.”

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/ukraine.html

*Ukraine emerged in 1922 as one of the founding republics of the Soviet Union*
*In 1945, the Ukrainian SSR became one of the co-founding members of the United Nations.*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine

Ukraine was never a region of Russia, not in a recent history (1917 ->). It used to be a part of Russian empire and Austria-Hungary though, but that was a long time ago.
How old are you, exactly? LOL

As for the original question, I'd write:


"The world's largest thallium deposits are found in Guangdong Province."

-or-

"The world's largest thallium deposits are found in the Province of Guangdong."

I would tend to leave 'the' off of "Guangdong Province", only because in my mind I see Guangdong-Province as one unit instead of two; and because it's a place.

Were it "Guangdong province" (lowercase p on province) I might use 'the' [i.e. the province of Guangdong], but honestly either is acceptable and both ways are right. It's just a matter of taste at this point--where one has not yet asserted itself over the other to the degree that one is correct and the other is not.

Of course you should put "the" before "Guangdong" province. Not doing so is bad English.

Hello Viktor

I am quite pleased to have provoked someone from the Ukraine, sorry Ukraine. The part of Poland that I have visited with my Polish Partner is close to the German Border, and it used to be part of Germany before the War. There is a substantial Ukrainian minority who live there as a result of 'Operation Vistula'. There is one school that flies the Ukrainian Flag.

Just as Americans tend to be blithely unaware of British sensibilities, so too, I do not really make any real distinctions between different groups of Eastern Europeans. I am only gradually finding out about the history of this part of the world.

At school, in geography lessons, we did not study the geography of France or Germany, but the geography of New Zealand and Australia; places where we might end up.

I was reffering to legal status of Ukraine. Using 'the' is completely inapropriate.