 <p>Convert the file into <a href="http://json.org/example.html" rel="nofollow">JSON data</a> for easy access -- the data shouldn't change very often, so this shouldn't be a problem. You can then load this via <a href="http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.getJSON/" rel="nofollow">AJAX</a>:</p> <pre><code>$.getJSON('ajax/cities.json', function(data) { var $opt = $("&lt;option&gt;") .attr("value",data.city) .text(data.state); $('#state').append($opt); }); </code></pre> <p>...or something like that.</p>