Directory layout similar to CraigsList

[cillosis]

I have been racking my brain trying a few different things and now am asking for help. I am building a niche classified ads type site and I would like to be able to have specific URL's for locations. I don't want to do subdomains (so not exactly like craigslist) but for example, for listings in Japan it would be:

 

mysite.com/japan

 

For a listing in Oregon it would be:

 

mysite.com/us/oregon

 

The main issue is that all the files are basically the same, just a copy of a shell index.php file in each folder. I have been using a lot of includes to try and make it easier on me to update without editing the file in each folder. The main difference between each folder is a simple SQL statement to decide what data to display.

 

Anyway, my question is: What is the best way to go about creating a directory structure like that while using common files? I had read somewhere that people sometimes use a subdomain for static data but I would like to avoid that. How do people normally do this?

 

Thanks in advance!

[cillosis]

Ok so I have been doing some more research and am looking at the concept of "Clean URLs". What do you think about these? Should you use mod_Rewrite? I suck at regular expressions. Since I am using Apache, what about ForceType? That would make it so I don't have to have all these seperate directories...I can do it all dynamically through MySQL but the user won't know that....Any ideas please?

[cillosis]

So let me continue the questions on this concept. With mod_Rewrite, it will rewrite your URL and display it as you want...but does it work in reverse? Can you type in that "clean" URL and it open the correct page? I want people to be able to type: "mysite.com/us/oregon" and it will open the classifieds for oregon only...