[Ike348]

I'm just starting to fool around with this and it looks like the abbreviations are easy enough to build using a simple formula: =UPPER(LEFT(B2,3)) It doesn't work if you have a two-word city for which you would want to use the initials, but I found another formula to do that.

It will also be tough to replace the appendices to the place name. The Census data has "Birmingham city" instead of just Birmingham, which makes sense, but is still a pain. I could do a case sensitive find and replace for " CDP", " city", " town", etc., but that might work for every single one.

Obviously the toughest part will be location data. I've been looking around the Census website for some location data for these places, and the best I've found are some KMLs that can overlay the place boundaries in Google Earth. I could drag the mouse over these places, but it would be better if there was location data for these places the same as population.

Then there is the not-too-simple matter of IDs. I think the first release might be one with all of the world IDs first (how I will re-order them, I have no idea), and then the U.S. IDs. I don't know yet.

This will be my official progress thread BTW.