willoww89

[graceful kernel]

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[final saffron]

If you're talking about location, there's a pattern and an exception. In general, the pattern is « préposition + location » and this applies to any location. Each location carries an article – which describes the gender of the noun it modifies – and that article elides with the preposition.
For example with the proposition « à »: « J'habite au Canada (à + le Canada) / aux États-Unis (à + les États-Unis) ». Another one with « de »: « Je viens du Portugal (de + le Portugal) / des Seychelles (de + les Seychelles) ».
There are, however, two exceptions:

1. Cities
   Cities don't have an article and so they don't have an article to elide. So, you just put the preposition and the location. So, you can just say, « Je vais à Paris / de Londres » without any article. However, some cities do come with an article like « le Caire, le Mans » and so the preposition elides: « Je vais au Caire / du Mans ».
2. Feminine singular provinces and countries
   This is the major exception. As we know, the feminine singular article doesn't elide with a preposition unlike the masculine; compare « du maïs » and « de la nourriture ». With locations, however, something else happens. With the preposition « à », the article instead transforms into « en ».
   So, if we were to follow the pattern as before, we would expect « J'habite à la France », but instead we get « J'habite en France », and this is the key: With a feminine singular province or the country, the feminine article disappears and the preposition « à » changes to « en ». So, not « à la France, à l'Allemagne, à la Chine », but « en France, en Allemagne, en Chine ». There's another exception with the preposition « de » where the article disappears but that's it. So, instead of « de la France, de l'Allemagne, de la Chine », we get « de France, d'Allemagne, de Chine ».

2a) Regions beginning with a vowel
What I said above also applies to regions beginning with a vowel like « Irak, Iran ». These two are masculine yet they behave like a feminine singular because they start with a vowel. So, instead of « J'habite à l'Irak / Je viens de l'Iran », we get, « J'habite en Irak / Je viens d'Iran ».