En, Au, Aux: French Prepositions for Countries

In English you reuse one tiny word for everywhere you go: you fly to France, to Japan, to the US, to Paris. French refuses to be that lazy. The word for “to” or “in” a country changes depending on whether the country is feminine, masculine, or plural. The moment you introduce yourself, plan a trip, or answer “where are you from?”, you need this rule — and getting it right is one of the clearest signals that you actually control French gender.

The good news: there are only four options, and a quick lookup table covers almost everything you’ll ever say. Let’s nail the rule, then deal with the handful of traps that trip up nearly every learner.

The whole rule in four lines

Here’s the entire system. Notice that “to” and “in” are the same word in French — je vais en France (going to) and je suis en France (am in) use the identical preposition. English’s to/in split simply doesn’t exist here.

French	English	Why
Je vais en France.	I'm going to France.	feminine country
On est au Japon.	We're in Japan.	masculine country
Je vais aux États-Unis.	I'm going to the US.	plural country
J'habite à Paris.	I live in Paris.	city

The mechanic underneath is simple: au is just à + le squished together, and aux is à + les. So you’re really saying “to the [masculine] country” or “to the [plural] country.” Feminine and vowel-starting countries are the exception — they drop the article entirely and switch to en. If contractions like au and aux still feel mysterious, the French articles guide explains exactly how à + le becomes au.

En — feminine countries (and vowel-starters)

Most countries ending in -e are feminine, and they all take en. No article ever appears: it’s en France, never “en la France.”

French	English
en France	to/in France
en Espagne	to/in Spain
en Italie	to/in Italy
en Allemagne	to/in Germany
en Chine	to/in China

There’s one extra rule that overrides everything else: if a country starts with a vowel, use en no matter what its gender is. That’s purely for smoother pronunciation. So even though Iran and Iraq are masculine, you say en Iran and en Irak — au Iran would sound clunky. Same goes for en Israël and en Afghanistan.

Au — masculine countries

Countries that don’t end in -e are generally masculine and take au (= à + le).

French	English
au Canada	to/in Canada
au Japon	to/in Japan
au Portugal	to/in Portugal
au Brésil	to/in Brazil
au Maroc	to/in Morocco

Quebec is technically a province, but it behaves like a masculine country: Martine habite au Québec. The verb habiter (“to live somewhere”) is your best friend for practising all of this, since you’ll constantly say where you and others live.

Aux — and the “going to the US” trap

A small set of country names are grammatically plural — their article is les — so they take aux (= à + les). Gender is irrelevant here; plural wins.

French	English
aux États-Unis	to/in the United States
aux Pays-Bas	to/in the Netherlands
aux Philippines	to/in the Philippines
aux Maldives	to/in the Maldives

This is the single most common intermediate mistake. Because the country is les États-Unis, “to the US” is aux États-Unis — never à États-Unis and never au États-Unis. And spell it properly: capital É, the accent, and the hyphen all matter. If the country’s name starts with les, your preposition is aux.

À — cities are the easy ones

After all that, cities are a relief. They take à with no gender and no article to worry about.

French	English
à Paris	to/in Paris
à Tokyo	to/in Tokyo
à Montréal	to/in Montreal
à Rome	to/in Rome

The only wrinkle: a few cities carry an article inside their name, which then contracts. Cairo is le Caire, so “in Cairo” is au Caire; Le Havre gives au Havre; and The Hague (La Haye) stays à La Haye. These are rare — just memorise them when you meet them.

The rebel six: -e countries that are secretly masculine

Here’s the trap that punishes anyone who over-trusts the “-e means feminine” shortcut. A handful of countries end in -e but are stubbornly masculine, so they take au, not en:

French	English
au Mexique	to/in Mexico
au Cambodge	to/in Cambodia
au Mozambique	to/in Mozambique
au Zimbabwe	to/in Zimbabwe

Think of them as the “rebel six”: le Mexique, le Cambodge, le Mozambique, le Zimbabwe, le Belize, le Suriname. Say au Mexique a few times out loud and the wrong version (en Mexique) will start to sound off.

Continents, and saying where you’re from

Every continent is feminine, so they all take en: en Europe, en Afrique, en Asie, en Australie. Islands are genuinely irregular — à Cuba, en Corse, aux Maldives — so treat those as vocabulary, not a rule.

Once you can say where you’re going, the natural follow-up is where you’re from, and it reuses the exact same gender logic with de:

French	English
Je viens de France.	I'm from France.	feminine → de
Je reviens du Japon.	I'm back from Japan.	masculine → du
une lettre des États-Unis	a letter from the US	plural → des

Feminine and vowel countries use de (d’Italie before a vowel), masculine countries use du (= de + le), and plural countries use des (= de + les). The verb venir (“to come”) is the one you’ll pair with these constantly.

You now know the whole machine: pick en, au, aux, or à by the country’s gender and number, and the “from” forms fall out for free. Next time you talk about a trip, lean on aller plus your new preposition — and if you want to say where you’re headed soon, the near future with aller is the perfect next step. Bonne route !