Countries without definite articles
When learning Portuguese, you quickly discover that most country names require a definite article. This means you usually say that you live no Brasil (in Brazil) or travel para a França (to France). However, a specific subset of countries normally takes no article at all in unmodified uses.
For English speakers, this group is actually easier to use because these countries behave exactly as they do in English. Names like Portugal, Israel, and Cuba stand alone without an o or an a attached to them.
Because these countries do not use definite articles, you do not need to contract your prepositions. Instead of merging em with an article to make no or na, you simply use the base preposition em. The same rule applies to de (from) and para (to).
Alongside Portugal and Israel, several other nations follow this article-less rule. You will see it with Cuba, Marrocos, Chipre, and Singapura. Portuguese-speaking African countries like Angola and Moçambique also belong to this group.
There is one important exception to this rule. If you add an adjective or a descriptive phrase to one of these article-less countries, it suddenly requires a definite article. When you are talking about a specific version or era of a country, the article appears.
While most countries in Portuguese need a definite article, a small group including Portugal, Cuba, and Marrocos normally does not. With these places, you use simple prepositions like em and de instead of their contracted forms, making them very straightforward for English speakers to use.