Geographic Names
Spell out
Do not use the abbreviations for parish/province/state etc. names. The names of the 50 U.S. states, 10 Canadian provinces, or other regions of the world should be spelled out when used in the body of a story, whether standing alone or in conjunction with a city, town, village or military base.
Miscellaneous
Use New York state when necessary to distinguish the state from New York City.
Use state of Washington or Washington state within a story when it's necessary to differentiate the state name from the U.S. capital, Washington. It's written Washington, D.C., with the added abbreviation only if the city might be confused with the state.
Abbreviate Saint as St.
Capitalization
Capitalize common nouns when they form an integral part of a proper name but lowercase them when they stand alone.
Pennsylvania Avenue, the avenue; the Philippine Islands, the islands; the Mississippi River, the river.
Lowercase common nouns that are not a part of a specific name
the Pacific islands, the Swiss mountains, Zhejiang province.
Punctuation
Place one comma between the city and the state name, and another comma after the state name, unless ending a sentence.
He was traveling from Nashville, Tennessee, to Austin, Texas, en route to his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
She said Cook County, Illinois, was Mayor Daley's stronghold.
Global
The first source for the spelling of all location names is Webster's New World College Dictionary as follows:
Use the first-listed spelling if an entry gives more than one.
If the dictionary provides different spellings in separate entries, use the spelling that is followed by a full description of the location.
If the dictionary does not have an entry, use the first-listed spelling in the National Geographic Atlas of the World.
New Names
Follow the styles adopted by the United Nations and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names for new cities, new independent nations and nations that change their names.
