I was wondering what people think about this country name. I have always just known it as "Gambia", but recently found out it seems to be strictly "The Gambia". Thus many would write: "I was in The Gambia last year."
Google reveals 159,000 cases of 'The Gambia' and 390,000 cases of 'Gambia' in a direct comparison.
Is this odd to anyone else? Particularly the capitalization of our beloved definite article mid-sentence seems a bit weird to me. Am I the only one not clued in on this? Are there many other (country or non-country) examples of this in English? I mean, I guess people write 'I was at The Dorchester' (meaning the hotel), but somehow this doesn't seem as odd to me. Oh, well.