"Going to Maldives" or "going to the Maldives"?
The phrase "going to the Maldive Islands" is quite common and it fits the rules. However, when it comes to using just "Maldives", both "to the Maldives" and "to Maldives" are used. Which one is the correct one?
Since Maldives are a number of islands, it seems like "going to the Maldives" is the correct version. So why are both phrases used interchangeably or is there a rule I need to know?
Thank you so much in advance.
Here's a related excerpt from the 2002 CGEL, page 517: (bolding is due to me)
Plural proper names are always weak. Plural names apply to mountain ranges (the Alps, the Himalyas [sic], the Urals); island groups (the Bahamas, the Hebrides, the Maldives); occasional other geographical entities (the Netherlands, the Balkans, the Dardanelles). Groups of performers may have weak plural names (the Beatles) or strong collective singulars (Abba).
Note that the CGEL is the 2002 reference grammar by Huddleston and Pullum et al., The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL).
ADDED: Here are a few links to a few wikipedia articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maldives
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_the_Maldives
If you skim through them, you'll see how they phrase it -- Maldives (Islands) vs the Maldives (Islands). The way they do it might be helpful, or it might not.
I'm a native Maldivian. We in the Maldives just say "Going to the Maldives".
That is because the word "Maldives" is a country name & a Noun, which if you loot at the etymology/Toponym you will find that its a Anglicised local/Regional name. "Maale Dhives" was used by Sri lankans and Maldivians. which itself comes from Sanskrit "Maala Dvipa", Maala meaning Garland & Dvipa meaning Island.
So if you use Maldives Island, it sounds funny when you know the meaning of Maldives.
If that is unusual you can try to use the locla Name "Dhivehi Raajje", Dhivehi meaning of the Isalnd/Island & Raajje meaning Realm.
Here is an Ngram chart for "to Maldives" (blue line) versus "to the Maldives" (red line) for the period (1900–2008):
As you can see, the "to the Maldives" form seems to be considerably more common in published texts. A look at the Google Books search results underlying the Ngram reveals concentrations of usage of "to Maldives" in UN reports and other sources referring to the nation (Republic of Maldives)—although this is by no means a unanimous treatment. Consider, for example, this excerpt from Yesim Elhan, Asian Development Bank, Technical Assistance to the Republic of the Maldives for Strengthening of Debt Management (2003):
The public debt management (PDM) specialist will be an economist with high-level academic qualifications and significant experience in managing public debt in small, developing economies, preferably those comparable to the Maldives.
On the other hand, references to the geographical islands comprising the Republic of Maldives tend to draw the wording "to the Maldives, as Kris's (now deleted) answer very neatly observes. But this, too, is not a universally observed distinction. From T.R. McClanahan, C.R.C. Sheppard & D.O. Obura, Coral Reefs of the Indian Ocean: Their Ecology and Conservation (2000):
It is said that an ancient group of sun-worshipping people called the Redin came to Maldives from Sri Lanka, or from the northwest in general, 4000 years ago, bringing with them their beliefs in spirits (djinni).
Obviously, the immigrants 4,000 years ago came to the Maldives (the islands) not to Maldives (the country).
Still, on balance, the Google Books search results strongly support the geographical ("to the Maldives")/national ("to Maldives") distinction that Kris's answer lays out.
Since Kris's answer is no longer visible to most readers, I will quote two key sentences from it here:
(the) Maldive islands are a group of [1,200 small coral] islands, a geographical area.
...
Maldives (formerly known as Maldive Islands) is a nation [independent since 1965] that geographically comprises of several islands.
According to Kris's sources, only about 220 of the 1,200 physical islands of the Maldives have human inhabitants, and the nation located there, at one time a colonial possession of the UK, is formally called Republic of Maldives.