Reference Machine - How to find the city

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

 

Last updated on: Friday, August 19, 2016