pronunciation.hiatus
Hiatus: día, país, leer
Two vowels in separate syllables: strong+strong (le-er, ca-er) or accented weak + strong (dí-a, pa-ís, ba-úl). The accent mark is what breaks the glide.
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Explanation
Pairs like ía, íe, ío, úa always carry the written accent precisely because stress on the weak vowel splits the syllables: María, río, continúa, oído.
This explains accent patterns that otherwise look random: dia would glide; día must not, hence the tilde. Verb forms live here: oír, reúne, países.
Hiatus is what makes otherwise 'random' accents systematic: dia would glide into one syllable, so día must carry a tilde to force two. The pattern recurs across whole verb families and noun sets (oír, reúne, continúa, María, río, países) wherever stress lands on a weak vowel next to a strong one.
Examples
María has lived in the country for a year.
Region: global
I still laugh about that story.
Region: global
María used to listen to the radio every day in the country.
Region: global