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On this page: how to find the correct city to put in your bibliography.
Related pages: Referencing,  Reference Machines for in-text citation, a book, an article in a journal, an edited book, a newspaper or magazine article or an Internet reference.

Introduction: in bibliographies and lists of references you need to put in the city of publication of books and edited volumes. It is often hard to find this information. Here are some suggestions:

1. Search the library catalogue for the book or edited volume. Look at the line which starts with 'Publisher '. The first entry is the city and the second is the name of the publishing company.

2. Many publishers have offices in many cities around the world. Look at the bottom of the page containing the referencing information and look for the words 'Published in...'; e.g. 'Published in the USA'. Then look at the cities where the different offices are and find the right city; e.g. '1, Times Square, New York, New York'. In this example the city of publication is New York.

3. If there is more than one city with the same name; e.g. Aberdeen, Scotland and Aberdeen, Hong Kong, you should also include the name of the country.

4. If the book is published in the USA and you know that there is more than one city with the same name, add a 2-letter abbreviation for the name of the state; e.g. NY for New York.
   
   Here are the states and their abbreviations:

   Alabama AL	Kansas KS	North Dakota ND
   Alaska AK	Kentucky KY	Ohio OH
   American Samoa AS	Louisiana LA	Oklahoma OK
   Arizona AZ	Maine ME	Oregon OR
   Arkansas AR	Maryland MD	Pennsylvania PA
   California CA	Massachusetts MA	Puerto Rico PR
   Colorado CO	Michigan MI	Rhode Island RI
   Connecticut CT	Minnesota MN	South Carolina SC
   Delaware DE	Mississippi MS	South Dakota SD
   District of Columbia DC	Missouri MO	Tennessee TN
   Florida FL	Montana MT	Texas TX
   Georgia GA	Nebraska NE	Utah UT
   Guam GU	Nevada NV	Vermont VT
   Hawaii HI	New Hampshire NH	Virginia VA
   Idaho ID	New Jersey NJ	Washington WA
   Illinois IL	New Mexico NM	West Virginia WV
   Indiana IN	New York NY	Wisconsin WI
   Iowa IA	North Carolina NC	Wyoming WY

    

5. Here are some common cities, organised by publisher:

City	Publisher
Cambridge	Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Hong Kong	Hong Kong University Press
San Francisco	Jossey-Bass
London	Longman
Oxford	Oxford University Press (OUP)
Oxford	Pergamon
London	Sage

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