How to Search People on Facebook by City

It is not always as easy to find someone on Facebook as you would think, but if you know where to look and how to conduct your search, your chances of finding the person you are looking for will increase considerably. Whether it's a family member, an old friend or a client you had worked with long ago, if you know how to use the search function of Facebook properly, you may actually be able to find them.

Now, I will continue first with showing how to search people by their city and then by their first name and city, hopefully after reading this tutorial, you will find whoever that you are looking for.

How to Search People by City on Facebook

One of the helpful information for looking up someone on Facebook, or on the Internet in general, is their city. Most Facebook users make the city they are currently living in publicly displayed, which means that Facebook users other than their friends can see where they live. Please keep in mind that if a person hasn't made their city info public, you will most probably not be able to find them using the city criteria in your searches.

So, let's see how we find someone by city on Facebook:

Step 1: Log in to your Facebook account.

Note that, you can't search people on Facebook without logging in to your account. However, you may still use search engines to find people on Facebook even without logging in, but that will not be as efficient as doing the search from within Facebook itself.

Step 2: Go to your Profile page. To go to your profile page, you can simply click the link with your avatar and first name in the top navigation.

Step 3: Go to your Friends page. You can find the link to your Friends page on the left sidebar.

Step 4: Go to Find Friends page. You can find the link to Find Friends page at the top right corner of the Friends section.

Alternatively, you can use the following link to quickly go to the Find Friends page:

https://www.facebook.com/find-friends/browser/

On the left side of the Find Friends page, you will see a list of friend requests that you have received, if any. On the right side, Add Personal Contacts section and below that, Search for Friends section.

In the Search for Friends section, you will see Name, Hometown and Current City filters to fine tune your search.

Step 5: In the Current City input box, enter the city that you want to search for people. In my example, I entered Los Angeles. As you type in the city name, a list of cities will be displayed, simply select the one you are looking for.

Once you enter a city, the search will take place and a number of random people will be listed on the left side. Currently, 17 people are listed. If you are searching people with a specific name, you can enter the name and then enter a city to find people with that name who live in that city. I am not showing the displayed results here due to privacy reasons.

I don't know what algorithm is used for returning people who live in the city that you enter (e.g. friends of your friends etc.) but this is one of the ways to search people by city on Facebook. Now, let's continue with another way to search for people by their (first) names and their cities.

How to Search People by First Name and City on Facebook

As I demonstrated above, you can search people by city, and also by name using the form on the Find Friends page. If you can't find the person that you are looking for with that method, you can try the following:

Step 1: Log in to your Facebook account.

Step 2: Find the Search Facebook box at the upper left corner.

Step 3: Let's say you are looking for John Doe in Los Angeles. Type the following into the search box and click the search button.

people named "John Doe" who live in Los Angeles

Obviously, replace the person name and city in your search. If there are more than one city with the same name, use the following query and include the state name to refine your search:

people named "John Doe" who live in Los Angeles, California

As you will see, a number of people with the name John Doe who live in Los Angeles will be listed on the search results. You can also use only a first name plus city if you want. To see more results, you can click See more button at the end of the People search section.

The following search query for example, finds men named Steve who once lived in New York:

men named "Steve" who lived in New York

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