Canterbury, England

[aysaa]

Hi,

-His father worked in Canterbury, England.

-His father worked in England, Canterbury.

I can't figure out which one is OK. Can you tell me which one is more natural to you as a native person?

Thanks.

[SoothingDave]

Normally, the city is given before the country/state. London, England. Paris, France. Houston, Texas.

[konungursvia]

Yes, and in general, in European languages, it goes from small to large, the opposite of East Asian languages, which go from largest to smallest (dates, addresses, family names, place names, etc.)

[Tdol]

Same in BrE.

[konungursvia]

Yes, I was including English. :)

Same in BrE.

[Grumpy]

Here's me sticking my neck out again...
In BrE, we wouldn't normally say "Canterbury, England", any more than we would say "London, England" or "Glasgow, Scotland". We would simply say "Canterbury", and assume that everyone knows that we are referring to the place in England, rather than the one in New Zealand [or anywhere else there are Canterburys]. I suppose it's because our Canterbury [or London, or Glasgow] came first, and so we consider them as primus inter pares in terms of geography. It's the same with our Armed Forces: we say "The Royal Navy" instead of the "Royal British Navy", and so on.
If we had to be absolutely specific about which particular Canterbury we were talking about, we would insert an "in", as follows: "Canterbury, in England".

[konungursvia]

Here in Toronto, we would refer to "Main Street" without saying "Main Street, Toronto" or any information context renders unnecessary. That doesn't change the fact that a learner was attempting to discover whether "Canterbury, England" is the grammatical norm as opposed to "England, Canterbury" the [Larger, Smaller] order many foreign languages require.

[BobK]

Here's me sticking my neck out again...
In BrE, we wouldn't normally say "Canterbury, England", any more than we would say "London, England" or "Glasgow, Scotland". We would simply say "Canterbury", and assume that everyone knows that we are referring to the place in England, rather than the one in New Zealand [or anywhere else there are Canterburys]. I suppose it's because our Canterbury [or London, or Glasgow] came first, and so we consider them as primus inter pares in terms of geography. It's the same with our Armed Forces: we say "The Royal Navy" instead of the "Royal British Navy", and so on.
If we had to be absolutely specific about which particular Canterbury we were talking about, we would insert an "in", as follows: "Canterbury, in England".

There are dozens of places called 'Victoria'. But if I got a train to Victoria I could manage without a passport!

Also, if your intonation made it clear that you were adding information you could say something like 'He was born in England - Canterbury to be precise'.

b