Countif() is what you want to use.

Say your datalist is in A2 to K100, with the state in Column J.

You could just add another column to your datalist, and use this formula to
return the count of each state in each row:

In L2 enter:
=Countif(J$2:J$100,J2)

and copy down to L100.

This would of course return duplicate results for each row with the same
state.

OR

You could make a separate list of all 50 states, say in M1 to M50,
and then enter this formula in N1, and copy down:

=Countif(J$2:J$100,M1)


--

HTH,

RD
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Please keep all correspondence within the Group, so all may benefit!
================================================== ===

"Kathy S" <Kathy wrote in message
...
I have a list of addresses and would like to sum the number of addresses in
each state. There is a column with the 2 letter state abbreviation for each
address. How can I do this? I have never summed actual text in a column
before