us
US state meta information and other fun stuff
Decision gist · record as of 2026-08-14
Yes. The package is actively maintained, has low install friction, carries no known vulnerabilities, and solves a common reference-data problem with a clean API. The unclear license treatment is a minor concern—review the BSD text if you have strict compliance requirements—but poses no practical barrier for most projects. Install it if you need reliable US state metadata or geographic lookups.AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
Before you install
- Low friction installation with a single pure-Python runtime dependency (jellyfish).
- Actively maintained with recent commits and support for current Python versions (3.8–3.12).
License · maintenance · safety
(unclear) — License treatment is unclear; the package carries a BSD-style license from Sunlight Labs but lacks an SPDX identifier. Review the full license text before use in proprietary or copyleft projects.
last release 2024-07-22 (753 days) · last repo commit 2026-05-21 · 518 stars
0 known vulnerabilities (OSV.dev, 2026-08-14) · 2,357,635 downloads/mo, #3,106 on PyPI
Alternatives
Verify before relying
pip install us
import us
state = us.states.lookup('maryland')
print(state.fips, state.abbr, state.name)- Whether the unclear license treatment poses a practical barrier for your project's license compliance requirements.
- Whether phonetic matching accuracy via jellyfish meets your tolerance for fuzzy state name lookups.
- Total number of US states and territories covered by the package.
What it is and what it does
The us package is a reference library for US state and territory data. It provides programmatic access to states and territories with their postal abbreviations, FIPS codes, capitals, statehood years, time zones, and geographic classifications (contiguous, continental). It includes a phonetic name lookup powered by jellyfish for fuzzy matching and generates URLs to 2010 Census Bureau shapefiles for various geographic regions (state, county, congressional district, census tract, block, etc.). The package also offers a command-line tool for quick lookups and a mapping function to generate dictionaries between any two state attributes.
It is designed for developers building applications that need authoritative US geographic metadata—data validation, address parsing, geographic analysis, or administrative dashboards. The library is pure Python with minimal dependencies, installs quickly, and has been maintained since its early releases with active support for modern Python versions. DC can optionally be included in state lists via an environment variable.
Use it for
- Validate and normalize US state abbreviations or FIPS codes in address or form-processing pipelines.
- Build geographic dashboards or reports that need state capitals, time zones, or contiguity information.
- Download Census Bureau shapefiles for mapping or GIS analysis by state or region.
- Implement fuzzy state name matching in user-facing search or autocomplete features.
- Generate lookup tables mapping between FIPS codes, postal abbreviations, and state names for data integration.
- Query state metadata (statehood year, time zone, AP abbreviation) for reference or display purposes.
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.
Yes.
The package is actively maintained, has low install friction, carries no known vulnerabilities, and solves a common reference-data problem with a clean API. The unclear license treatment is a minor concern—review the BSD text if you have strict compliance requirements—but poses no practical barrier for most projects. Install it if you need reliable US state metadata or geographic lookups.
Install
us on PyPI
Before you install
Low friction installation with a single pure-Python runtime dependency (jellyfish). Actively maintained with recent commits and support for current Python versions (3.8–3.12).
License in practice
License treatment is unclear; the package carries a BSD-style license from Sunlight Labs but lacks an SPDX identifier. Review the full license text before use in proprietary or copyleft projects.
Quickstart
pip install us
import us
state = us.states.lookup('maryland')
print(state.fips, state.abbr, state.name)Verify before relying
- Whether the unclear license treatment poses a practical barrier for your project's license compliance requirements.
- Whether phonetic matching accuracy via jellyfish meets your tolerance for fuzzy state name lookups.
- Total number of US states and territories covered by the package.
Package facts
| License | Not declared unclear |
| Python support | Supports the current Python release >=3.8 |
| Install friction | Low. Pure-Python wheel |
| Runtime dependencies | 1 packagejellyfish |
| Maintenance | Actively maintained 753 days since the last release |
| Last repo commit | |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 2,357,635 / month, #3,106 on PyPI 30-day window, as of 2026-08-14 |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14 |
| Classifiers | Programming Language :: PythonProgramming Language :: Python :: 3.10Programming Language :: Python :: 3.11Programming Language :: Python :: 3.12Programming Language :: Python :: 3.8Programming Language :: Python :: 3.9 |
Evidence: us-3.2.0-py3-none-any.whl
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See also geonamescache · google-i18n-address · census · pyzipcode · uszipcode · zipcodes · spm-calculator · nicknames · censusgeocode · phonetics