Standardise Country and State Columns Before an Import: USA, U.S. and America to One Value

Clean the country column first, then the state column, and import the clean versions. Upload the CSV to the country name normalizer, choose names or ISO codes, and download it with country_clean and country_code. Then upload that file to the state abbreviation converter, choose codes or full names, and download state_clean. Because the file now has a clean country on every row, shared codes like WA are read in the right country.

Sources, read 2 November 2026: ISO 3166 country codes, USPS Publication 28, state abbreviations, Canada Post province and territory symbols, Mailchimp's format guidelines for your import file and HubSpot's state and country picklist article (export, clear, change to a dropdown, clean, re-import).

Why one country, many spellings, breaks things

Raw values in one column	What a tool sees
United States, USA, U.S., America, US	Five countries
United Kingdom, UK, England, Great Britain	Four countries, and UK isn't an ISO code
Deutschland, Germany, DE	Three countries
"Austin, TX, United States", "Toronto, ON"	Free text no segment matches
California, CA, Calif., Cali	Four states

Dropdown properties are stricter still: HubSpot's picklist article has you clean the values before re-importing into a dropdown, because a value that doesn't match an option can't be stored there.

Step by step

1. Export the list with its country or location column and its state column. Apollo has Country; LinkedIn-based exports often have a single Location.
2. Normalise countries. In the country name normalizer, choose names for copy or ISO 2-letter codes for imports like Mailchimp's. Locations are read from their last part, so "San Francisco, CA" gives the United States; Remote, Global and n/a become blank.
3. Read the flagged rows. Georgia, a lone state name in a country column, and shared codes are flagged rather than guessed.
4. Convert states. In the state abbreviation converter, choose codes or full names and the default country for rows without one. It reads AP-style abbreviations (Calif., Mass., N.Y.), DC in its usual spellings, US territories, Canadian provinces and Australian states.
5. Map the clean columns in the import: country_code or country_clean, and state_code or state_clean.
6. Use them. Segment by country for language or law, by state for time zones and state rules; the email list by country tool splits by domain ending when there's no country column at all.
7. Verify before the import on the verify page, so the clean rows are also reachable rows.

Honest limits

• Last-part reading. "Paris" alone, or "Springfield", can't be placed; there's no city lookup.
• Three countries for states. The US, Canada and Australia only; other regions are left as written.
• Listed, not located. A country column says where a contact or company is listed, not where the person is today.

For the phone side of the same problem, see the E.164 phone number format.

Where SimpleVerifier fits

Upload the cleaned file on the verify page; the first 100 checks are free with a Google sign-in. Pro is $39 a month with the first 100,000 checks a month at full speed, then slower, never cut off. See pricing.