Rivers
We usethebefore the names of rivers. We usually writethewithout a capital letter. If we use the wordriver, we usually write it without a capital letter:the river Thames, the river Severn, the Yangtze river.
We don’t always use the wordriver, especially when it is obvious that we are talking about a river:the Mississippi, the Nile, the Ganges, the Loire.
Mountains and islands
We usethewith the names of some mountains:the Matterhorn, the Jungfrau.
We do not usetheif the name includesMountorMountain:Mount Olympus,Brokeback Mountain.
We often refer to some mountains just by their name withoutthe:Everest, Kilimanjaro, Snowdon.
We usually usethebefore the names of ranges of mountains and groups of islands:the Dolomites, the Himalayas, the Rockies, the Bahamas, the Florida Keys, the Canaries.
Deserts, oceans and seas
We usually usethebefore the names of deserts, oceans and seas. We often leave out the worddesert,oceanorsea:the Saharaorthe Sahara Desert,the Atlanticorthe Atlantic Ocean,the Mediterraneanorthe Mediterranean Sea.
Cities, countries and continents
We don’t usethewith the names of cities, countries or continents:Paris, Tokyo, France, Peru, Africa, Asia.
A small number of country names includethe:The United Kingdom,The USA,The United Arab Emirates,The Netherlands.
Lakes
We don’t usually usethewith the names of lakes. We often use the wordLakebefore the name:Lake Como, Lake Michigan, Lake Geneva, Lake Tahoe.
See also:
Nationalities, languages, countries and regions
A/anandthe
Place names