US States: Capitals & Abbreviations
Complete list of the 50 US states with their capitals and official postal abbreviations.
Full list of the 50 states
| State | Capital | Abbreviation |
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About the US states
- The United States has had 50 states since 1959, when Alaska and Hawai'i joined the union.
- Each state has its own constitution, governor, legislature, and laws — which is why rules on taxes, schooling, and driving differ from one state to the next.
- Washington, D.C. is the federal capital but is not a state; it is a federal district with limited self-government and no voting representation in Congress.
- The country also has five inhabited territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands), which are not states.
How postal abbreviations work
Every state has an official two-letter abbreviation set by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). They are written in capital letters with no periods — CA, NY, TX, FL — and they appear constantly in everyday life: on mailing addresses, driver's licenses, license plates, and online forms. The standard U.S. address format places the abbreviation right before the ZIP code, for example:
350 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10118
Most abbreviations are intuitive (CA = California, OH = Ohio), but a few are not, because several states share the same first letters. Watch out for these: AL = Alabama vs AK = Alaska; MS = Mississippi vs MO = Missouri; MI = Michigan vs MN = Minnesota; and AR = Arkansas vs AZ = Arizona. The search box above accepts either the full name or the abbreviation.
Why the capital is rarely the biggest city
One of the most common surprises for visitors is that a state's capital is usually not its largest or best-known city. When states chose their capitals in the 18th and 19th centuries, they often picked a smaller, more central town to keep the seat of government away from a dominant commercial port and accessible to the whole state. The result:
- New York: the capital is Albany, not New York City.
- California: the capital is Sacramento, not Los Angeles or San Francisco.
- Illinois: the capital is Springfield, not Chicago.
- Florida: the capital is Tallahassee, not Miami or Orlando.
- Texas: the capital is Austin, not Houston or Dallas.
- Pennsylvania: the capital is Harrisburg, not Philadelphia or Pittsburgh.
There are exceptions where the capital is also the largest city — Phoenix (Arizona), Denver (Colorado), Boston (Massachusetts), Atlanta (Georgia), and Honolulu (Hawai'i) among them — but they are the minority.
Interesting facts
- Largest state by area: Alaska (about 663,000 sq mi / 1.7 million km²).
- Smallest state by area: Rhode Island (about 1,545 sq mi / 4,000 km²).
- Most populous state: California (~39 million).
- Least populous state: Wyoming (~580,000).
- Oldest state capital: Santa Fe, New Mexico, founded around 1610.
- The 13 original states formed the union in 1776; the most recent additions were Alaska and Hawai'i in 1959.
To place these 50 states within the country's geography — Northeast, South, Midwest, West, climates, time zones — see US geography & regions. To understand how power is split between the states and Washington, see States vs federal government.
Frequently asked questions
How many states are there, and is Washington, D.C. one of them?
There are 50 states. Washington, D.C. (the District of Columbia) is the federal capital but is not a state — it is a separate federal district. Puerto Rico and four other inhabited territories are also not states.
Why isn't the capital the largest city in most states?
When states picked their capitals, they often chose a smaller, more central town to keep government accessible to the whole state and separate from a dominant commercial city. That is why Albany, not New York City, is the capital of New York, and Sacramento, not Los Angeles, is the capital of California.
Are the two-letter abbreviations the same as license-plate or area codes?
The two-letter USPS abbreviation (CA, TX, NY) is the standard one used in addresses and on most forms. It is not the same as a telephone area code, which is a three-digit number tied to a region rather than a whole state. Some older abbreviations (Calif., Tex., Penn.) still appear in print, but the two-letter version is now standard.
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