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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-03T01:37:36+00:00

If I’m making a database to store all the states, counties and cities along

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If I’m making a database to store all the states, counties and cities along with info for each such as state website url, governor, etc. Is the best way to set up the counties functionality like:

'Counties' Table (One)
with two fields -> 'state' and 'county'
Texas      Anderson
Texas      Bell
Texas      Dalhart
New York   Albany
New York   Allegany

with each row having a unique ID?

Or make a counties table for each state? Or make one counties table with each state being a different field?

The more I explain the more I’m almost certain it’s the first way, but I’ve never done this before so I wanted to check.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    A state to county is a one to many relationship.
    Simple enough

    States
PK StateID

StateCounties
FK StateID
PK CountyID

    Because county names may be duplicated across different states you may want your counties table to have a CountyID auto identity number like an int to serve as a key. I’m not sure why you are introducing an additional ID field for the row. What makes it unique is the combination of state and county. No single county can belong to two states. They may have the same name but they do not belong to the same state.

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