Regular Expressions for City name

Question

I need a regular Expression for Validating City textBox, the city textbox field accepts only Letters, spaces and dashes(-).

What programming language are you using? – Andrew Logvinov Aug 01 '12 at 10:11 — Andrew Logvinov, Aug 01 '12 at 10:11
I had tried many times. but none of my tries succeeded. – Manaysah Aug 01 '12 at 10:31 — Manaysah, Aug 01 '12 at 10:31

score 39 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 05 '14 at 00:45

39

This answer assumes that the letters which @Manaysah refers to also encompasses the use of diacritical marks. I've added the single quote ' since many names in Canada and France have it. I've also added the period (dot) since it's required for contracted names.

Building upon @UIDs answer I came up with,

^([a-zA-Z\u0080-\u024F]+(?:. |-| |'))*[a-zA-Z\u0080-\u024F]*$

The list of cities it accepts:

Toronto
St. Catharines
San Fransisco
Val-d'Or
Presqu'ile
Niagara on the Lake
Niagara-on-the-Lake
München
toronto
toRonTo
villes du Québec
Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
Île-de-France
Kópavogur
Garðabær
Sauðárkrókur
Þorlákshöfn

And what it rejects:

A----B
------
*******
&&
()
//
\\

I didn't add in the use of brackets and other marks since it didn't fall within the scope of this question.

I've stayed away from \s for whitespace. Tabs and line feeds aren't part of a city name and shouldn't be used in my opinion.

answered Sep 05 '14 at 00:45

2

^([a-zA-Z\u0080-\u024F]+(?:(\. )|-| |'))*[a-zA-Z\u0080-\u024F]*$ it should be (\. ) instead of just ". ", because . is a special character – maxisam Feb 25 '16 at 16:59
I replaced the last . with a + to disallow a city name ending with a hyphen – mattlary Mar 30 '17 at 19:42
3

This doesn't work if city contais a number... for example "NICE CEDEX 1" – V. Sambor Sep 13 '17 at 07:40
In my opinion the best answer. – Blackbam Aug 10 '21 at 08:05
Stripping out slashes unfortunately cuts out some cities. For instance, Guelph/Eramosa. – Alex Plumb Jun 26 '23 at 15:04

score 33 · Accepted Answer · edited May 09 '18 at 19:22

33

This can be arbitrarily complex, depending on how precise you need the match to be, and the variation you're willing to allow.

Something fairly simple like ^[a-zA-Z]+(?:[\s-][a-zA-Z]+)*$ should work.

warning: This does not match cities like München, etc, but here you basically need to work with the [a-zA-Z] part of the expression, and define what characters are allowed for your particular case.

Keep in mind that it also allows for something like San----Francisco, or having several spaces.

Translates to something like: 1 or more letters, followed by a block of: 0 or more spaces or dashes and more letters, this last block can occur 0 or more times.

Weird stuff in there: the ?: bit. If you're not familiarized with regexes, it might be confusing, but that simply states that the piece of regex between parenthesis, is not a capturing group (I don't want to capture the part it matches to reuse later), so the parenthesis are only used as to group the expression (and not to capture the match).

"New York" // passes

"San-Francisco" // passes

"San Fran Cisco" // passes (sorry, needed an example with three tokens)

"Chicago" // passes

"  Chicago" // doesn't pass, starts with spaces

"San-" // doesn't pass, ends with a dash

edited May 09 '18 at 19:22

Daniel

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answered Aug 01 '12 at 10:13

pcalcao

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+1, but your `[\s-]*` should be `[\s-]+`. That part of the regex shouldn't become active unless an actual hyphen or whitespace character is seen. – Alan Moore Aug 01 '12 at 14:25
You're totally right, it makes no sense to have a city ending in spaces or hifens, and that would be allowed by my current regex, changing it... Thanks! - Updated: Actually changed to [\s-] alone, since I don't think we need multiple spaces or hifens without following letters. – pcalcao Aug 01 '12 at 14:30
2

If you want cities like München to pass, replace `[a-zA-Z]` with `\p{L}` Here's my version: `^\p{Lu}\p{L}*(?:[\s-]\p{Lu}\p{L}*)*$` – Philippe Hebert Nov 22 '16 at 19:41
How about `[0-9]`? This is valid in town names too. – Sep 10 '19 at 06:09
What if I want to allow it to start with a space (or multiple spaces)? – Milkncookiez May 05 '20 at 14:08
For an explanation on what the `\p{L}` means there's a good answer here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14891129/regular-expression-pl-and-pn/14891168 – Pete Jun 02 '21 at 10:41

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 24 '13 at 19:35

5

Adding my answer if anybody needs its while searching for Regex for City Names, Like I did

Please use this :

^[a-zA-Z\u0080-\u024F\s\/\-\)\(\`\.\"\']+$

As many city names contains dashes, such as Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee, or special characters like, ñ in La Cañada Flintridge, California

Hope this helps!

answered Oct 24 '13 at 19:35

UID

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On further testing, this regex also accepts () // --- and others. – Sep 04 '14 at 23:26

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered May 09 '18 at 20:37

Here is the one I've found works best

for PCRE flavours allowing \p{L} (.NET, php, Golang)

/^\p{L}+(?:([\ \-\']|(\.\ ))\p{L}+)*$/u

for regex that does not allow \p{L} replace it with [a-zA-Z\u0080-\u024F]

so for javascript, python regex use

/^[a-zA-Z\u0080-\u024F]+(?:([\ \-\']|(\.\ ))[a-zA-Z\u0080-\u024F]+)*$/

White listing a bunch of character is easy, but there are things to watch for in your regex

consecutive non-alphabetical characters should not be allowed. i.e. Los Angeles should fail because it has two spaces
periods should have a space after. i.e. St.Albert should fail because it's missing the space
names cannot start or end with non-alphabetical characters i.e. -Chicago- should fail
a whitespace character \s !== \, i.e. a tab and line feed character could pass, so space character should be defined instead

Note: When building regex rules, I find https://regex101.com/tests is very helpful, as you can easily create unit tests

js: https://regex101.com/r/cgJwc0/1/tests
php: https://regex101.com/r/Yo3GV2/1/tests

Working with Golang, I've found your regex more than useful! _Jesus bless you — Dilunga the Great, Jan 20 '21 at 20:57

score 4 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 05 '19 at 10:43

Here's one that will work with most cities, and has been tested:

^[a-zA-Z\u0080-\u024F]+(?:. |-| |')*([1-9a-zA-Z\u0080-\u024F]+(?:. |-| |'))*[a-zA-Z\u0080-\u024F]*$

Python code below, including its test.

import re
import pytest


CITY_RE = re.compile(
    r"^[a-zA-Z\u0080-\u024F]+(?:. |-| |')*"  # a word
    r"([1-9a-zA-Z\u0080-\u024F]+(?:. |-| |'))*"
    r"[a-zA-Z\u0080-\u024F]*$"
)


def is_city(value: str) -> bool:
    valid = CITY_RE.match(value) is not None
    return valid

# Tests
@pytest.mark.parametrize(
    "value,expected",
    (
        ("1", False),
        ("Toronto", True),
        ("Saint-Père-en-Retz", True),
        ("Saint Père en Retz", True),
        ("Saint-Père en Retz", True),
        ("Paris 13e Arrondissement", True),
        ("Paris  13e  Arrondissement ", True),
        ("Bouc-Étourdi", True),
        ("Arnac-la-Poste", True),
        ("Bourré", True),
        ("Å", True),
        ("San Francisco", True),
    ),
)
def test_is_city(value, expected):
    valid, msg = validate.is_city(value)
    assert valid is expected

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Aug 01 '12 at 10:11

1

^[a-zA-Z\- ]+$

Also this might be useful http://www.cheatography.com/davechild/cheat-sheets/regular-expressions/

answered Aug 01 '12 at 10:11

BSen

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This will only work for English names. `München` (Munich) would not match. Using `\w` instead could help, when used with caution – amon Aug 01 '12 at 10:14
amon, `\w` catch digits and _ – burning_LEGION Aug 01 '12 at 10:15
@burning_LEGION That is where the caution comes in. In Perl I'd write `/((?!\d|_)[\w -])+/` (look-ahead) – amon Aug 01 '12 at 10:17
your regex better than any in this post =) – burning_LEGION Aug 01 '12 at 10:21

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Aug 01 '12 at 10:12

1

use this regex:

^[a-zA-Z-\s]+$

answered Aug 01 '12 at 10:12

burning_LEGION

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`\s` will allow any whitespace, not just spaces. – mogelbrod Aug 01 '12 at 10:14
Yeah probably best to actually declare the space character ` ` instead of `\s` as if the textbox allows for multi-line, it will parse the newline character as valid. – GoldBishop Aug 05 '13 at 17:41

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Jun 18 '18 at 15:26

1

After many hours of looking for a city regex matcher I have built this and it meets my needs 100%

(?ix)^[A-Z.-]+(?:\s+[A-Z.-]+)*$

expression for testing city. Matches

City
St. City
Some Silly-City
City St.
Too Many Words City

it seems that there are many flavors of regex and I built this for my Java needs and it works great

answered Jun 18 '18 at 15:26

Monkey Wrench

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this will allow - & dot at the end – Satish Patro May 08 '20 at 14:03

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Sep 17 '18 at 03:15

1

^[a-zA-Z.-]+(?:[\s-][\/a-zA-Z.]+)*$

This will help identify some city names like St. Johns, Baie-Sainte-Anne, Grand-Salut/Grand Falls

answered Sep 17 '18 at 03:15

prafful24

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dot should be near \s- ^[a-zA-Z.-]+(?:[\s-.][\/a-zA-Z]+)*$, else it will allow dot at end – Satish Patro May 08 '20 at 14:03

score 0 · Answer 10 · edited May 09 '18 at 19:37

0

You can try this:

^\p{L}+(?:[\s\-]\p{L}+)*

The above regex will:

Restrict leading and trailing spaces, hyphens
Match cities with names like Néewiller-près-lauterbourg

edited May 09 '18 at 19:37

Daniel

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answered Aug 26 '14 at 10:30

Nitin Khanna

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Should be noted that this is the php and golang regex flavour, js and python should use `\u0080-\u024F` instead of `\p{L}` – Daniel May 09 '18 at 19:59

Brandon L · Answer 11 · 2015-08-20T15:28:00.933

0

I like shepley's suggestion, but it has a couple flaws in it.

If you change shpeley's regex to this, it will not accept other special characters:

^([a-zA-Z\u0080-\u024F]{1}[a-zA-Z\u0080-\u024F\. |\-| |']*[a-zA-Z\u0080-\u024F\.']{1})$

edited Aug 20 '15 at 15:28

answered Aug 20 '15 at 14:24

Brandon L

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George · Answer 12 · 2016-12-20T12:25:12.850

0

I use that one:

^[a-zA-Z\\u0080-\\u024F.]+((?:[ -.|'])[a-zA-Z\\u0080-\\u024F]+)*$

edited Dec 20 '16 at 12:25

answered Dec 15 '16 at 09:19

George

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score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Jun 22 '20 at 04:29

Here are some fun edge-cases:

's Graveland
's Gravendeel
's Gravenpolder
's Gravenzande
's Heer Arendskerke
's Heerenberg
's Heerenhoek
's Hertogenbosch
't Harde
't Veld
't Zand
100 Mile House
6 October City

So, don't forget to add ' and 0-9 as a possible first character of the city name.

Regular Expressions for City name

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