US City List
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Guides

How to work with U.S. city, county & ZIP data.

Practical, step-by-step walkthroughs — geocoding, mapping ZIPs, and joining place data on FIPS. Each guide pairs with a free tool and real column names you can copy.

Opening our files

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How-to · Excel / Sheets

Open a US City List CSV in Excel or Google Sheets without losing the leading zeros

Keep every FIPS code and ZIP code intact, and check that you did.

Read guide →6 min

ZIP codes & place lookup

Try the ZIP Lookup →
How-to · Excel / Sheets

Add county and FIPS codes to a list of ZIP codes

One XLOOKUP keyed on the 5-digit ZIP pulls primary_county and county_fips into your sheet — plus the two gotchas that break it.

Read guide →5 min FAQ

ZIP, city, county & FIPS — quick answers

Short, sourced answers with the exact column names: ZIP → city/county/FIPS, coordinates, duplicate names, and one-file coverage.

Read the FAQ →8 Q&As

Geocoding & coordinates

Try the City Geocoder →
How-to · Python

Geocode a list of US cities in Python — no paid API

Attach lat/lng with a pandas merge — join on city + state or the exact fips_place_code, no API and no rate limits.

Read guide →6 min FAQ

How do I add latitude & longitude to cities?

The short version: match to a reference List and copy the coordinate columns across — in a spreadsheet or in pandas.

Read the answer →1 min

County affordability

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How-to · Excel / Sheets

How to reproduce our county affordability figures in Excel or Google Sheets

Build both county affordability figures, rent burden and home price to income, from the County List with Demographics in Excel or Google Sheets. Three columns, two formulas.

Read guide →5 min FAQ

How to calculate rent burden for a county: quick answers

Rent burden is median_gross_rent × 12 ÷ median_household_income. The ×12 matters: rent is monthly, income is annual. Worked examples and coverage notes.

Read the FAQ →8 Q&As FAQ

How to calculate home price to income for a county: quick answers

Home price to income is median_home_value ÷ median_household_income. What the result means, why "years" is a reading and not a unit, and a worked example.

Read the FAQ →8 Q&As

Sales territory design

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How-to · Excel / Sheets

Build balanced sales territories from US counties in Excel or Google Sheets

Split any set of states into territories that hold the same number of households.

Read guide →7 min FAQ

Sales territory data — quick answers

What this data can and cannot size, and why.

Read the FAQ →9 Q&As

Every guide starts from the same data. Get the free basic city list to follow along — city, state, and FIPS for every U.S. city.

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