"I have been to France." vs. "I have been in France." [duplicate]

Question

Do we use "to" or "in" when talking about being to/in another location?

Answer 1

Before this question is closed, I'd like to answer your question because it's an easy one to explain and often asked by English language learners who often find themselves on this site. But yes, as per WS2's comment, this is better suited for ELL.

Say: I am in France. (If you are actually in France)

Don't say: I am to France >:-(

Say: I am going to France.

Don't say: I am going in France :-(

Say: I have been to France.

Don't say: I have been in France. (If you mean you visited France once)

Say: I have been in France. (If you mean you are still in France or still living in France)

This is confusing because we say:

Have you been in the new mall they just built? (Meaning: Have you been inside the mall)

No, I haven't been in there yet.

A lot of the confusion is because you can use in when you are actually inside a building or an area (like a stadium), but we use to when the place is a destination or a country. If you are being very literal, sometime we use in.

Have you ever been to France?

Sort of. I flew over it once.

Yes, but have you ever been in France?

We do say:

I am in France right now.

I have been in France since Tuesday.

But in the past we say:

I was in France last week.

I have been to France before.

I went to France last week.

EDIT: Changed the answer to reflect the comments below.

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EDIT: Before people start reading me the riot act about my defense of not saying "have been in" a place, here's my research: The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) has 5119 entries for "have been in". None of which I've found so far mean "visited". The grammar has always been an acceptable way to express that sb. was or still is or continuously is in some place or is literally inside a place/building/area. I did also check the British National Corpus (BNC) to see if this was a British/American difference. There are 1289 entries there and I'm about halfway through with no indication that "have been in" is used in the way the commenters below propose for "visit". This is what I'm basing my answer on.

That being said, the incidence according to Google NGrams points to the fact that "have been in" as a phrase is more widely used in literature than "have been to" (Google NGrams). Here's a Q&A from pearsonlongman.com that indicates it's a contextual difference, which I've stated all along.

Perhaps my aversion is simply due to my particular brand of English, so if there are other resources, please post. As with many of these questions, it's a prescriptive versus descriptive approach to grammar. In my opinion, if you say it and people understand you, it's usable.