Pulling States and Countries from Database

Hi, I am using PHP and MYSql. I have a table with country and state as different columns. I need to query the database for available states in a pull down. How do I get a query to display information from a column without duplicates?

In other words populate the pull downs with only states that are in the database with no duplicates.

use the DISTINCT keyword.

select distinct states from mytable where ....

Edit: I deleted your duplicate post in the PHP coding forum as this is a database related question. Please refrain from posting the same question in multiple forums in the future. Thanks!!