près de Madagascar et de l'île Maurice.

Question

Hello, Can you please help me with this: "près de Madagascar et de l'île Maurice.". Why is it not "du île Maurice" ? because "de+le" = "du" isn't it?

Accepted Answer

Vincent, ‘ de le ‘ contracts to du ‘ but ‘de l’….’ does not contract. Same situation applies to ‘ à l’ ….‘ - no contraction occurs. 
See lesson link :
https://progress.lawlessfrench.com/revision/grammar/contractions-of-articles-a-le-au-a-les-aux-de-le-du-de-les-des

Answer

Hi Vincent,
The noun 'île' is feminine so it cannot be 'du'. It isn't 'de la' because of the vowel.
Hope this helps!

Answer

Just to add to Maarten's point  --  the preposition is près de in its entirety. The "de" in this case is part of the preposition.https://www.wordreference.com/fren/pr%C3%A8s

Answer

Cécile, to avoid confusion in case anyone reads this and thinks our responses are conflicting, even when ‘ de l’…. ‘ occurs in the masculine eg ‘ de l’hôtel ‘ , ‘de l’…. does not contract to ‘ du ‘.

Both points are important here, one is specific to the situation with ‘ l’île ‘, the other to the general question raised about contraction.