the Ivory Coast/Ivory Coast

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GeneD

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While Sarah was working in the Ivory Coast, she visited Ghana and Liberia as well. She loves West Africa and hopes to work there again in the future. Taken from here: https://www.englishpage.com/articles/articles_18.htm

In the Wikipedia article about this country (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_Coast), its name is written without (or primarily without, as I've noticed without reading it very carefully) the article. So the question is why in the exercise the correct answer is "the Ivory Coast" but not "Ivory Coast". Is the option with "the" more common in the US? What about other varieties of English?

My guess is that the two options are interchangeable nowadays. Do I get it right?
 

Rover_KE

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The official French name is Côte d'Ivoire, which translates as 'Ivory Coast'.

If some people mistakenly add 'the' in English, it doesn't really matter much to anybody as far as I can see.
 
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