It's the same with some countries' names. Switzerland always has a female article in German: you can spend your vacation in France ("in Frankreich") but Switzer

It's the same with some countries' names. Switzerland always has a female article in German: you can spend your vacation in France ("in Frankreich") but Switzerland requires an article ("in der Schweiz"). Same with Iran and Iraq, which always require a male article, and some plural countries (Netherlands, US). Note that the full list is quite a bit longer: https://deutschtraining.org/deutsche-grammatik/artikel/laender-mit-artikel/ https://deutschtraining.org/deutsche-grammatik/artikel/laend...