title: Handling states and countries (or provinces): best way to implement
body: <p>In my career I have seen literally dozens of ways that people choose to handle implementing state and country data (as in NY or USA).  I've seen enumerations, multi-dimensional arrays, data driven classes from XML docs or databases, and good old-fashioned strings.</p>
  
  <p>So, I'm wondering, what do people consider the "best way" to handle this very common implementation?  I know that most of the answers will be based primarily on opinion and preference; but, I'm curious to hear arguments as a recent discussion for an app I'm working on has resulted in a small debate.</p>