French Prepositions with States and Provinces

Which preposition should you use with an American state or Canadian province?

Introduction | Countries and Continents
States and Provinces | Cities and Islands | Test

In order to decide which preposition to use with an American state or Canadian province, you must first determine its gender, which is a matter of memorization: all but nine states and five provinces/territories are masculine (see my list of states and list of provinces to find out which are feminine).

1. Masculine states and provinces can be preceded by either dans le or au to mean to/in, and du to mean from unless they start with a vowel (see 2, below).
     
   Exceptions: dans/de l'état de New York, dans/de l'état de Washington: these are said this way to distinguish between the cities and the states by the same name.
     
2. Masculine states/provinces that start with a vowel can take either en or dans l' for to/in, and d' or de l' to mean from.
     
3. All feminine states/provinces take en (to, in) and de or de la (from).
    

	Meaning
State/Province is:	To or In	From
masculine and starts with consonant	dans le / au	du
masculine and starts with vowel	dans l' / en	de l' / d'
feminine	en	de

 Examples:

Masculine	Feminine	Exceptions
Je vais dans le Nevada.	Je suis en Floride.	Je travaille dans l'état de New York.
Il est du Québec.	Elle est de Géorgie.	Il est de l'état de Washington.
Nous sommes en Illinois.
Es-tu d'Arizona ?

Note: Islands follow their own rules.

Prepositions with Geographical names - introduction Countries and Continents States and Provinces Cities and Islands Test on geographical prepositions Countries   US states   Canadian provinces More French Prepositions     French Dictionaries

  

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