Removing certain States in Magento

Magento supports multi store, multi language, multi site and other multi stuff. As its support multi language it contains complete collection of both country and state. Several reasons why store owners’ want to remove state/region in the checkout and registration section are the following:

1. The scope of shipping location that their store caters.
2. The delivery capacity of the company.
3. Shipping method is not allowed with that state.
4. Or simply just get rid off in the list.

Alternative Solution

Most developer/even owner with an extra “tech skill” often do a manual deletion in magento database. They remove specific state in the table to narrow down the list. It is an easy-to-do way but has a pitfall in terms of upgrading magento. When you update magento those state deleted will be back. 

Best Solution:

Removing it in different approach :
1. copy the collection.php located in /app/code/core/Mage/Directory/Model/Mysql4/Region/Collection.php
2. create directory and paste it.
/app/code/local/ Mage/Directory/Model/Mysql4/Region/Collection.php

Find this code:

$this->_select->from(array('region'=>$this->_regionTable),
    array('region_id'=>'region_id', 'country_id'=>'country_id', 'code'=>'code', 'default_name'=>'default_name')
);

Replace it with:

$exclude_regions = array ('AS','AK','AA','AC','AE','AK','AM','AP','FM','GU','HI','MH','MP','PW','PR','VI','AF');
$this->_select->from(array('region'=>$this->_regionTable),
    array('region_id'=>'region_id', 'country_id'=>'country_id', 'code'=>'code', 'default_name'=>'default_name')
)
->where('code NOT IN (?)', $exclude_regions);

$exclude_regions = array ('AS','AK','AA','AC','AE','AK','AM','AP','FM','GU','HI','MH','MP','PW','PR','VI','AF'); Please take note that 'AS', AK' are state abbreviation that will be excluded. You can view these abbreviation either in search engine or in database.