# List of Country Names > Today I had to build yet-another-list of country names for a web site drop down form. I did some Google searching for about 10 minutes and didn't find anything that was free. I… URL: https://jdconley.com/blog/list-of-country-names Published: 2007-09-05T11:22:00.000-07:00 Updated: 2011-07-22T01:27:05.736-07:00 --- Today I had to build yet-another-list of country names for a web site drop down form. I did some Google searching for about 10 minutes and didn't find anything that was free. I dunno, maybe I'm just blind... I did, however, find a list on Wikipedia. So, I decided I'd pull it down and parse it up. Here's the code: ``` static void Main(string[] args){ string fullpage; using (WebClient wc = new WebClient()) { byte[] pageBytes = wc.DownloadData( @"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_country_name_etymologies"); string encoding = wc.ResponseHeaders["Content-Encoding"]; fullpage = wc.Encoding.GetString(pageBytes); } MatchCollection countryMatches = Regex.Matches(fullpage, @"

(?. ):

", RegexOptions.Multiline); foreach (Match m in countryMatches) { Group g = m.Groups["country"]; Console.WriteLine(g.Value); } Console.WriteLine("done"); Console.ReadLine();} ``` As you can see it's dirt simple. Just a WebClient to download the page (holy crap it's big) and a simple Regex call. Presto! A list of countries I'll be dropping into a database so we can edit it later.