Question

I have four tables, namely

countries,states,cities,areas

which will be the best feasible solution for my database table

Method A :

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `countries` (
`id` int(11) auto_increment NOT NULL,
`name` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY  (`id`),
UNIQUE(`name`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `states` (
`id` int(11) auto_increment NOT NULL,
`name` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
`country_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY  (`id`),
UNIQUE(`name`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `cities` (
`id` int(11) auto_increment NOT NULL,
`name` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
`state_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY  (`id`),
UNIQUE(`name`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `areas` (
`id` int(11) auto_increment NOT NULL,
`name` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
`zipcode` int(11) NOT NULL,
`city_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY  (`id`),
UNIQUE(`name`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

or Method B :

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `countries` (
`id` int(11) auto_increment NOT NULL,
`name` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY  (`id`),
UNIQUE(`name`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `states` (
`id` int(11) auto_increment NOT NULL,
`name` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
`country_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY  (`id`),
UNIQUE(`name`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `cities` (
`id` int(11) auto_increment NOT NULL,
`name` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
`state_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`country_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY  (`id`),
UNIQUE(`name`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `areas` (
`id` int(11) auto_increment NOT NULL,
`name` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
`zipcode` int(11) NOT NULL,
`city_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`state_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`country_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY  (`id`),
UNIQUE(`name`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

Thank you..

Answer 1

The first is less likely to have problems with synchronization.

The second will offer better performance through denormalization.

Possible related thread: What is a good way to denormalize a mysql database?