A more accurate comparison is “The Palatinate”, “The Pale”, “The Highlands” or “The Yucatan” - it’s still wrong but it’s not unheard of for regions defined by a predominant geographic feature.
Interestingly enough one of my examples shares that distinction and is just arbitrary. “The Pale” is drawn from the same root as pallisade and basically means fence post… it’s basically “What the English claim” and it’s a completely arbitrary region.
A more accurate comparison is “The Palatinate”, “The Pale”, “The Highlands” or “The Yucatan” - it’s still wrong but it’s not unheard of for regions defined by a predominant geographic feature.
Ukraine is not a predominant geographic feature? Like, I know what the name means, but for English speaking people the word doesn’t mean anything?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Ukraine Check out the “English definite article” section
Interestingly enough one of my examples shares that distinction and is just arbitrary. “The Pale” is drawn from the same root as pallisade and basically means fence post… it’s basically “What the English claim” and it’s a completely arbitrary region.