Across Africa and Asia, whether a country takes a definite article is mostly lexical — you learn it country by country rather than deriving it from a rule. The good news is that the split is not random: the article-less group clusters tightly around the Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) African nations — Angola, Moçambique, Cabo Verde — plus a couple of one-offs like Israel. Almost everything else takes an article: o Japão, a China, a Índia, o Egito, a África do Sul. This page gives you the article, gender, preposition, and demonym for each, and shows you the clean dividing line so you stop guessing.
The default is "with article"
As with the rest of the world, the Portuguese default for an Asian or African country is to attach a definite article, because the name behaves like an ordinary noun. Japan is o Japão, China is a China, India is a Índia. In running speech the article is obligatory — you would never drop it.
The reason this group is "lexical" rather than rule-governed is that the gender and the presence of the article were fixed long ago by how each name entered Portuguese, and there is no surface feature you can inspect to predict them. China ends in -a and is feminine, which feels tidy — but Japão ends in the nasal -ão and is masculine, while Egito ends in -o and is also masculine, and Índia ends in -ia and is feminine. The endings give weak hints at best. The honest advice is to learn each country as a three-part packet: name + article + demonym, the way you learn o problema (masculine despite the -a ending). Trying to derive the article from the spelling will fail often enough to mislead you.
O Japão é famoso pela pontualidade dos trens.
Japan is famous for the punctuality of its trains.
A China tem a maior população do mundo.
China has the largest population in the world.
A Índia e o Egito têm civilizações milenares.
India and Egypt have civilizations thousands of years old.
Reference table: Africa and Asia
The gender / article column drives the preposition (see the next section).
| English | Portuguese | Gender / Article | "in/to" (em) | Demonym (m. / f.) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Japan | o Japão | m. | no Japão | japonês / japonesa |
| China | a China | f. | na China | chinês / chinesa |
| India | a Índia | f. | na Índia | indiano / indiana |
| South Korea | a Coreia (do Sul) | f. | na Coreia | coreano / coreana |
| North Korea | a Coreia do Norte | f. | na Coreia do Norte | norte-coreano / norte-coreana |
| Egypt | o Egito | m. | no Egito | egípcio / egípcia |
| South Africa | a África do Sul | f. | na África do Sul | sul-africano / sul-africana |
| Russia | a Rússia | f. | na Rússia | russo / russa |
| Nigeria | a Nigéria | f. | na Nigéria | nigeriano / nigeriana |
| Kenya | o Quênia | m. | no Quênia | queniano / queniana |
| Thailand | a Tailândia | f. | na Tailândia | tailandês / tailandesa |
| Iran | o Irã | m. | no Irã | iraniano / iraniana |
| Iraq | o Iraque | m. | no Iraque | iraquiano / iraquiana |
| Israel | Israel | (no article) | em Israel | israelense |
| Angola | Angola | (no article) | em Angola | angolano / angolana |
| Mozambique | Moçambique | (no article) | em Moçambique | moçambicano / moçambicana |
| Cape Verde | Cabo Verde | (no article) | em Cabo Verde | cabo-verdiano / cabo-verdiana |
The article-less set: Lusophone Africa plus a few others
Here is the pattern that turns memorization into understanding. The countries that take no article are dominated by the African Lusophone nations — the countries that themselves speak Portuguese:
- Angola → em Angola
- Moçambique → em Moçambique
- Cabo Verde → em Cabo Verde
To these you add a small number of unrelated exceptions, the most common of which is Israel → em Israel. (Recall from the Americas page that Cuba is another article-less name.) Note that not every Lusophone African country is article-less — a Guiné-Bissau and São Tomé e Príncipe vary — so treat "Lusophone Africa" as a strong tendency rather than an absolute law. The countries dealt with in depth on the lusophone page are covered there (see countries/lusophone-countries).
Minha avó nasceu em Angola e emigrou para Portugal.
My grandmother was born in Angola and emigrated to Portugal.
Eles moraram em Israel por dois anos.
They lived in Israel for two years.
A música de Cabo Verde é conhecida no mundo todo.
The music of Cape Verde is known all over the world.
A note on Russia
A Rússia is geographically Eurasian, but linguistically it behaves like the article-bearing majority: feminine, with the article, → na Rússia, demonym russo / russa. There is nothing special about it for our purposes; it is listed here because it straddles the two continents.
O inverno na Rússia é brutal.
The winter in Russia is brutal.
Prepositions follow the article
Exactly as with the Americas: an article-bearing country contracts em with its article (em + o → no, em + a → na), while an article-less country keeps a bare em.
Trabalhei no Japão e depois na China.
I worked in Japan and then in China.
Ela fez um intercâmbio na Índia, não em Israel.
She did an exchange program in India, not in Israel.
Vamos visitar a África do Sul e depois Moçambique.
We're going to visit South Africa and then Mozambique.
The full origin (de/do/da) and destination (para/pro/pra) system is on countries/prepositions-with-countries.
Demonyms: lowercase, agreeing, and many in -ês
The people-words agree in gender and number and stay lowercase, like all nationality adjectives (see adjectives/nationality-adjectives). A large Asian cluster ends in -ês, which has a distinctive feminine in -esa: japonês → japonesa, chinês → chinesa, tailandês → tailandesa. Note the masculine drops the accent in the feminine and plural: japonês but japonesa, japoneses.
O restaurante é tailandês, mas a chef é chinesa.
The restaurant is Thai, but the chef is Chinese.
Conheci um casal nigeriano e uns estudantes israelenses.
I met a Nigerian couple and some Israeli students.
Israelense ends in -ense and is invariable for gender (um cidadão israelense, uma jornalista israelense), exactly like canadense and estadunidense.
A subtle trap for English speakers lurks in the -ês group. In English, "Japanese," "Chinese," and "Portuguese" are invariable — one word for the man, the woman, the language, and the plural. Portuguese splits them: the masculine japonês carries a circumflex, but the feminine japonesa and the plural japoneses lose it, because the accent only marks the stressed final syllable of the masculine singular. So you write um turista japonês but uma turista japonesa and dois turistas japoneses. Forgetting to drop the circumflex in the feminine and plural is one of the most common spelling errors learners make with this set.
Os turistas japoneses adoraram a feira; a guia japonesa explicou tudo.
The Japanese tourists loved the market; the Japanese guide explained everything.
Note too that some demonyms are compound and hyphenated: sul-africano (South African), norte-coreano (North Korean). Both parts of the compound stay lowercase, and only the second part agrees and pluralizes: as cidades sul-africanas.
Common Mistakes
❌ Eu morei em Japão.
Incorrect — Japão takes the article, so em + o → no
✅ Eu morei no Japão.
I lived in Japan.
❌ Eles viajaram para a Angola.
Incorrect — Angola takes no article; it stays bare
✅ Eles viajaram para Angola.
They traveled to Angola.
❌ Visitamos o Egipto.
Incorrect — that's the European Portuguese spelling
✅ Visitamos o Egito.
We visited Egypt. (Brazilian spelling, no p)
❌ Ela é Japonesa.
Incorrect — nationality words are lowercase
✅ Ela é japonesa.
She is Japanese.
❌ a India, a Coréia
Incorrect — missing/wrong diacritics
✅ a Índia, a Coreia
India, Korea (Í accented; Coreia has no acute on ei after AO90)
Key Takeaways
- The Asia/Africa article split is lexical — memorize it, but lean on the pattern.
- With article: o Japão, a China, a Índia, a Coreia, o Egito, a África do Sul, a Rússia, a Nigéria, o Quênia, a Tailândia, o Irã, o Iraque → no Japão, na China, na Índia...
- Without article: Israel, Angola, Moçambique, Cabo Verde (and, from the Americas, Cuba) → em Israel, em Angola...
- The article-less group clusters around the Lusophone-African countries plus Israel.
- Demonyms agree, stay lowercase, and the Asian -ês group has a feminine in -esa; israelense is gender-invariable.
Now practice Portuguese
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Start learning Portuguese→Related Topics
- Countries and Nationalities: OverviewA1 — How country names in Brazilian Portuguese lexically take (or drop) the definite article, how that choice drives the preposition, and how nationalities and languages stay lowercase.
- Lusophone CountriesA2 — The nine Portuguese-speaking countries of the CPLP — their names, articles, prepositions and demonyms — from Brasil and Portugal to the African PALOP and Timor-Leste.
- Prepositions with Country NamesA2 — The full preposition system for countries in Brazilian Portuguese: em/no/na/nos for location, de/do/da for origin, para/pro/pra for destination — and how the country's article drives every contraction.
- Nationality AdjectivesA1 — How Brazilian Portuguese forms nationality and city adjectives — they agree in gender and number, stay lowercase, and double freely as nouns.
- Languages: Words and ArticlesA1 — Language names in Brazilian Portuguese are lowercase, take no article after falar (falo inglês) but do take one as a subject or object of study, and 'em + language' means 'in that language'.