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I see similar issues with the following searches:

Kansas City
https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/xml?address=Kansas+City&output&sensor=false

Kansas City, KS
https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/xml?address=Kansas+City+KS&output&sensor=false

Here is an example showing the issue:

https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=Oklahoma%20City%2C%20OK%2C%20USA&key=YOUR_API_KEY

Whereas this example gives the expected behavior:

https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=Oklahoma%20City%2C%20OK&key=YOUR_API_KEY

{
   "results" : [
      {
         "address_components" : [
            {
               "long_name" : "Oklahoma City",
               "short_name" : "Oklahoma City",
               "types" : [ "locality", "political" ]
            },
            {
               "long_name" : "Oklahoma County",
               "short_name" : "Oklahoma County",
               "types" : [ "administrative_area_level_2", "political" ]
            },
            {
               "long_name" : "Oklahoma",
               "short_name" : "OK",
               "types" : [ "administrative_area_level_1", "political" ]
            },
            {
               "long_name" : "United States",
               "short_name" : "US",
               "types" : [ "country", "political" ]
            }
         ],
         "formatted_address" : "Oklahoma City, OK, USA",
         "geometry" : {
            "bounds" : {
               "northeast" : {
                  "lat" : 35.674752,
                  "lng" : -97.12472
               },
               "southwest" : {
                  "lat" : 35.2905439,
                  "lng" : -97.83367489999999
               }
            },
            "location" : {
               "lat" : 35.4675602,
               "lng" : -97.5164276
            },
            "location_type" : "APPROXIMATE",
            "viewport" : {
               "northeast" : {
                  "lat" : 35.674752,
                  "lng" : -97.12472
               },
               "southwest" : {
                  "lat" : 35.2905439,
                  "lng" : -97.83367489999999
               }
            }
         },
         "place_id" : "ChIJgdL4flSKrYcRnTpP0XQSojM",
         "types" : [ "locality", "political" ]
      }
   ],
   "status" : "OK"
}

This continues to be a production issue that is negatively impacting revenue every hour it goes unresolved.  We need a solution for this.

We've not seen any movement on this case in the issue tracker or ticket since 4/11 and need to assure our impacted franchisees that the issue is being actively investigated. Is there an RCA available at this point and potential path to resolution?
-Andy

+1 StackOverflow:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/49837612/google-geocode-api-unknown-error-for-random-cities

Is there any update to this issue please? It has been four days now. And note that the title of the issue has changed since I first reported it. New York is a state but that works fine.

I am having issues in my system that are affecting "Kansas City, KS", "Oklahoma City, OK", etc.

A quick check returns the unknown_error when I search for "Nebraska City, NE"

HOWEVER- when I search for "Falls City, NE", "Jefferson City, MO" and "Panama City, FL" return results just fine. So the issue is not with the word "city", the issue seems to be when the state name is spelled out in the city name, followed by the state abbreviation.

Searching for "Jersey City" and "Oklahoma City" with no state abbreviation return correct results.  Searching for "Kansas City" alone returns unknown_error, however searching for "Kansas City, MO" works correctly.  So the issue seems to be only with "<(partial)State_Name> City, <State_Abbrev>" searches where they are the same state.

The pattern isn't completely just "state name embedded in city name".  One of my failures is "Salt Lake City, UT", but "Salt Lake, UT" works.  This is super annoying, it causes a few dozen failed jobs a day that have to be manually cleaned up.  But state name seems to be part of it, since "Kansas City, KS" is broken but "Kansas City, MO" is fine.

Same issue happening here re: geocoding API requests with both 'Platte City, MO' and 'Platte City, Missouri'.

Has there been any progress on this error? It seems to be affecting (almost) every city with the work "city" in it and is negatively impacting our ability to accurately geotag.

No - there's been zero movement or comments from Google.  Absolute worst response to an issue I've seen from Google.

Not sure if this will help anyone else since I don't know your use cases, but what we've done in the meantime is use google places api instead (which doesn't error for any of the above cities).

Yes appears to be some locations with "City" in their name. Florida City, Florida for example.

Apologies for the radio silence. We are investigating this issue and will keep you posted.

The issue has been fixed. Apologies that it's taken so long time.

This issue has started happening again. Examples: "idaho city" and "kansas city".

This does not appear to be the case. At least, not the same issue happening again.

Previously, the affected queries returned UNKNOWN_ERROR all or most of the time, and it always took >2000 ms.

The following requests are now returning OK every time (out of hundreds) within 150 ms. or less:
https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=kansas%20city&key=YOUR_API_KEY
https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=idaho%20city&key=YOUR_API_KEY

Please file a new bug with full API requests if you find any that consistently (or often) return an error.

This issue not fixed. We are getting same error (UNKNOWN ERROR) for some inputs.

The following requests are now returning UNKNOWN ERROR every time

https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/autocomplete/json?components=country:USA&types=geocode&language=en_US&language=en_fr&types=(cities)&input=27,U&key=YOUR_API_KEY

https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/autocomplete/json?components=country:USA&types=geocode&language=en_US&language=en_fr&types=(cities)&input=US&key=YOUR_API_KEY

#20 is very much not the same issue, as it is an entirely different API. For this, please file a new bug at
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/new?component=188872&template=789006