Naming Convention for State / Region / Province

Question

I am building a class that represents a US State or Canadian Province. What should the class be called?

Some ideas:

• Region: Problem with this is that .Net has a RegionInfo class that uses the term Region to represent a country (and not a State or Province).
• State: Problem with this is that it could cause confusion with Application State, or Session State, etc...
• Province: Could work, but very Canada-centric. Just doesn't feel right.

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EDIT: GeographicalRegion seems like the way to go. It could even be used as a base class for other geographical region types (ie: Country) and still make sense.

Answer 1

GeographicalRegion would be my choice. Its pretty short and totally unambiguous, and it has no connotations with real types of area such as Province or State.

Answer 2

Definitely don't go with "State" - way too confusing, and "Territory" has .ca implications too. Wikipedia suggests "Subnational" or "SubnationalDivision" would be good.

Answer 3

StateOrProvince

Answer 4

I see no problem with State; in the context you're using it in, I don't expect any confusion with application state. Everywhere you use it, you'll also be referring to Country, StreetName, and PostCode, right? Likewise if you choose to name it Region.

I don't like Region, though, because it's rather vague. All kinds of things are regions. If someone asked me what region I lived in, I might say the Midwest. Or the Western Hemisphere. Or Ramsey County. It all depends on context.

You and those working on your project should already know the context, so use a word that makes sense there. Don't worry about whether the word has meanings in other contexts; you're not working with those.

Answer 5

A more generic name for State, that is applicable anywhere in the world, is CountrySubdivision, or just Subdivision.

Answer 6

@JayArr: +1 for GeographicalRegion from me.

@Alex: Although your question implies that your application is only for North America, I would suggest that you use standard ISO 3166-2 geo-region identifiers, which will allow the data to be expanded into other world regions in the future, if required.

Answer 7

Google uses the term administrative_area_level_1 in their geocoder.

administrative_area_level_1 indicates a first-order civil entity below the country level. Within the United States, these administrative levels are states. Not all nations exhibit these administrative levels. administrative_area_level_2 indicates a second-order civil entity below the country level. Within the United States, these administrative levels are counties. Not all nations exhibit these administrative levels. administrative_area_level_3 indicates a third-order civil entity below the country level. This type indicates a minor civil division. Not all nations exhibit these administrative levels.

REF: http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/geocoding/#Types