A List of United States | 50 States And Capitals

If you’re building a worksheet, filling out a form, or cleaning up a spreadsheet, a list of united states states saves time. It cuts spelling slips, mixed abbreviations, and stray punctuation that can break a search or sort.

You’ll get the full 50-state table near the top, plus practical ways to use it for school notes, mailing labels, and data work. Yep, it’s the kind of page you bookmark and come back to.

Quick note: Washington, D.C. is a federal district, not a state. U.S. territories use their own postal codes, so the main table sticks to the 50 states only.

A List of United States States In One Table

This table is alphabetized by state. Copy a single row, or paste the whole set into a document, note, or sheet.

State	Capital	USPS Code
Alabama	Montgomery	AL
Alaska	Juneau	AK
Arizona	Phoenix	AZ
Arkansas	Little Rock	AR
California	Sacramento	CA
Colorado	Denver	CO
Connecticut	Hartford	CT
Delaware	Dover	DE
Florida	Tallahassee	FL
Georgia	Atlanta	GA
Hawaii	Honolulu	HI
Idaho	Boise	ID
Illinois	Springfield	IL
Indiana	Indianapolis	IN
Iowa	Des Moines	IA
Kansas	Topeka	KS
Kentucky	Frankfort	KY
Louisiana	Baton Rouge	LA
Maine	Augusta	ME
Maryland	Annapolis	MD
Massachusetts	Boston	MA
Michigan	Lansing	MI
Minnesota	Saint Paul	MN
Mississippi	Jackson	MS
Missouri	Jefferson City	MO
Montana	Helena	MT
Nebraska	Lincoln	NE
Nevada	Carson City	NV
New Hampshire	Concord	NH
New Jersey	Trenton	NJ
New Mexico	Santa Fe	NM
New York	Albany	NY
North Carolina	Raleigh	NC
North Dakota	Bismarck	ND
Ohio	Columbus	OH
Oklahoma	Oklahoma City	OK
Oregon	Salem	OR
Pennsylvania	Harrisburg	PA
Rhode Island	Providence	RI
South Carolina	Columbia	SC
South Dakota	Pierre	SD
Tennessee	Nashville	TN
Texas	Austin	TX
Utah	Salt Lake City	UT
Vermont	Montpelier	VT
Virginia	Richmond	VA
Washington	Olympia	WA
West Virginia	Charleston	WV
Wisconsin	Madison	WI
Wyoming	Cheyenne	WY

Ways To Use A State List Without Slips

Mailing Labels And Forms

For U.S. mail, the two-letter USPS code is the standard format. Write it in all caps, with no periods. If you want the official list of codes, the USPS Appendix B abbreviations table is the source used in postal standards.

Many online forms accept either the full state name or the code. Pick one style and stick with it across the whole page. Mixing “CA” and “California” inside a single column can trip simple matching rules.

School Notes And Memory Drills

If you’re studying capitals, work in small batches. Hide the capital column, test yourself on five states, then reveal it. Short rounds feel lighter than one long cram session.

Try a two-pass method. Pass one: write the state names from memory. Pass two: check each one against the table, then correct spelling in a different pen color. That quick contrast makes the correction stick.

Spreadsheets And Data Work

In a sheet, keep state names in one column and codes in another. That makes sorting, filtering, and merging cleaner. When you import data, stray spaces are a common trouble spot. A trim step before matching rows saves a lot of cleanup.

When you build a drop-down list, use the full state names, not abbreviations. Then store the code in a second column with a simple lookup. That way, people can type “New York” and still get “NY” automatically.

Capitals That Don’t Match The Biggest City

A lot of people assume the largest city is the capital. Sometimes that’s true. Often it’s not. When a state’s capital and its largest city differ, the capital is still the seat of state government and the place tied to state laws, agencies, and the legislature.

Here are a few pairs that trip students up: New York-Albany, California-Sacramento, Illinois-Springfield, Pennsylvania-Harrisburg, and Florida-Tallahassee. If your brain keeps swapping them, pair each state with its capital as one unit, like a two-word name you always say together.

A neat trick is to write capitals in a single column without the state names, then sort them A-Z. Your eyes start to spot patterns: lots of capitals end with “-city,” several are short one-word names, and a few repeat a saint name. Pattern spotting beats pure memorizing.

State Names That Often Cause Mix-Ups

Multi-Word State Names

Eight states have two words: New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota. One has three: West Virginia. Keep the spaces in place when you sort, search, or build a drop-down list.

When you type fast, the space after “New” can vanish. If you ever see “NewYork” in a spreadsheet, fix it right away. One missing space can stop a match function cold.

Directional Pairs

North and South pairs can blur when you’re rushing. Pair them with their capitals as a memory hook: North Carolina-Raleigh; South Carolina-Columbia. North Dakota-Bismarck; South Dakota-Pierre.

Both Dakotas start with D in their codes. The second letter does the sorting work: ND and SD.

Washington And The District

Washington is a state with the capital Olympia. Washington, D.C. is a federal district. On a mailing line, D.C. uses the code DC, while Washington state uses WA.

If your dataset mixes them, add a separate “Type” column so you can tag rows as State or District. That keeps filters tidy and cuts errors in charts and counts.

Quick Formatting Rules That Keep Lists Clean

Small formatting choices can cause big headaches, especially when a list moves between tools. These rules help keep your list stable from notebook to spreadsheet to online form.

• Use USPS codes without periods: NY, not N.Y.
• Keep capitalization steady. Title case for state names is standard in class notes and documents.
• Keep commas inside a single cell only when you mean a true list, like in the admission groups table later on.
• Use straight quotes in spreadsheets if your system breaks curly quotes.
• Keep “City” in capitals that include it, like Carson City and Oklahoma City.

If you need to export the list, plain CSV is the safest route. It carries columns cleanly and plays well with most tools. Just check that your commas stay inside the right cells.

Sorting And Matching In Spreadsheets

Most list trouble shows up during sorting and matching. A good setup keeps your work calm.

1. Create three columns: State, Capital, Code.
2. Freeze the header row so you don’t lose track while scrolling.
3. Sort by State to keep the main list stable.
4. Use a data-validation list on the State column when other people type into your sheet.
5. Use a lookup to pull Code and Capital from State. In many sheets, that’s a single formula in the Code column.

When you receive messy data, watch for these common patterns: extra spaces, mixed punctuation, and mismatched abbreviations. Clean those first, then try your match. If you skip cleanup, the match step can feel broken when it’s often just a spacing issue.

If you’re building an auto-grader for a class, accept a small range of safe variations for capitals like “St. Paul” and “Saint Paul.” Then show students the official spelling so their notes stay consistent.

Statehood Order Groups For Faster Recall

Sometimes you don’t need every admission date. You just need a rough sense of when groups of states joined the Union. The groupings below follow the admission order summarized in the Congress CRS admission tables.

Use these clusters for flashcards or timelines. They help when a class prompt asks for early states, late additions, or the set that arrived during westward expansion.

Group	States	Time Span
Original 13	Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island	1787-1790
Early Additions	Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee	1791-1796
Early 1800s	Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Maine, Missouri	1803-1821
Mid 1800s Growth	Arkansas, Michigan, Florida, Texas, Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, Oregon, Kansas	1836-1861
Civil War Era	West Virginia, Nevada	1863-1864
Late 1800s	Nebraska, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah	1867-1896
Early 1900s	Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona	1907-1912
Late Additions	Alaska, Hawaii	1959

Quick Checks Before You Copy Or Submit

When the stakes are a grade, an application, or a mailing label, a quick review beats a re-do. Run these checks in under a minute.

• Match spelling to the table, not to memory.
• Use USPS codes with no periods.
• Keep spaces in multi-word state names.
• Write Saint Paul as “Saint” in formal lists unless your school style says “St.”
• Keep “City” in capital names that include it.

If you’re pasting into a form with a drop-down menu, enter the state name first. If the form rejects it, switch to the two-letter code.

Mini Practice Plan For States, Capitals, And Codes

If you’re learning state capitals or postal codes, a short routine works better than one long night of cramming. This mini plan keeps each session short, then repeats the same facts in a new way so they stick.

You can do it with a notebook, a sheet of paper, or a simple spreadsheet. No setup needed.

Seven-Day Routine

• Day 1: Pick 10 states. Write state, capital, code. Check the table. Rewrite the ones you missed.
• Day 2: Use the same 10 states. Write only capitals, then match them back to states.
• Day 3: Pick a new set of 10. Say each state and capital out loud once, then write the codes.
• Day 4: Mix both sets. Shuffle the order. Aim for quick recall, not perfect handwriting.
• Day 5: Pick 10 more states. Add a map check: point to the state on a map after you write it.
• Day 6: Write all codes you know from memory. Then fill gaps using the table. Circle the tough ones.
• Day 7: Do a full self-test: 25 states, then 25 capitals. Score yourself and repeat the missed items.

Two quick habits help a lot. First, write the code as two letters with no punctuation, each time. Second, keep multi-word names intact, with spaces, so your brain learns the exact shape of the name.

If you’re using this as a classroom handout, print the table, then add a blank second copy where students fill in capitals or codes. It keeps the task clear and keeps the page tidy.

Last Pass To Keep Your List Clean

If you need the state list for classwork or a dataset, copy from the main table and save a fresh version in your notes. A clean copy from a known list is faster than fixing a messy one later.

Want a quick self-check? Pick ten random states, write their capitals, then verify against the table. If you miss more than two, go back to five-state batches for a day or two. You’ll feel the improvement fast.