Random State Generator

How to use the random state generator

Select the country in the Pick a random state from list and press Pick a Random State. With the default settings you get one of the 50 US states. Tick Include territories if you also want the country's territories and districts in the draw; the result is then labelled State or Territory instead of State.

Each entry in the pool has exactly the same chance, no matter how large, populous or famous it is. Rhode Island is as likely as Texas, and Sikkim is as likely as Uttar Pradesh. Each press of the button is a new, independent draw, so the same state can come up twice in a row.

chance of one entry = 1 ÷ number of entries in the pool

Example: the United States without territories has 50 entries, so each state has a 1 ÷ 50 = 2% chance. With the six US territories and districts added the pool grows to 56, each entry drops to about 1.79%, and the chance of landing on a territory is 6 ÷ 56 ≈ 10.7%.

Which countries and divisions are included

The generator covers ten federal countries, using each country's first-level divisions: the part of the country that sits directly under the national government. Their local names differ (states, provinces, federal states), but the tool calls them all states. Disputed or ambiguous entities are left out.

Names are shown in English where there is a well-established English form (Bavaria, Lower Saxony) and in the local form otherwise (Córdoba, São Paulo). India's union territories are not part of the pool.

The 50 US states

These are the entries drawn when the United States is selected and territories are off, with each state's postal abbreviation and capital city. They are handy for geography games where the player has to name the capital of whichever state comes up.

Ways to use a random state

Geography games. Draw a state at the start of a round, or on each player's turn, and ask for its capital, its abbreviation, a neighbouring state or the year it joined. Because the draw ignores size and fame, small and obscure states get their turn as often as big ones. For quizzes about whole countries instead, use the random country generator.

Trip ideas. If you cannot decide where to go next, let the generator choose a state or province and build a weekend around it. Redraw if the result is impractical; the draw has no memory, so a second press is just as fair as the first.

Teaching and writing. Teachers can assign each student a state to research without arguments about who got the popular ones; writers can use a random state as the setting for a scene. To hand out the states, draw names with the random name picker.