One word, several offices
Search for a consulate and the word does more work than it should. It can mean an embassy's consular section in a capital, a consulate general in a major city, a smaller consulate, a vice-consulate, or an honorary office run by a local appointee. They share a sign and a flag; they do not share powers, hours or jurisdictions. That is why the first question is never "where is the consulate" but "which kind, covering my address, doing my task".
The directory, counted
This site's directory records 1,457 missions: the offices of 22 home countries, hosted in 119 countries and 381 cities. The United States hosts the most foreign missions, 157, followed by China with 93 and Germany with 62. For 1,405 of the 1,457, the record states the jurisdiction, the territory that office serves, which is the field that decides whether your trip is to the right building. A consulate across town that does not cover your state is, for your document, not your consulate.
Finding yours, in order
Start with your home country and your task, then your address: the jurisdiction line names the states or regions the office covers. Check the record's own fields before traveling: a website is recorded for 644 of the missions and office hours for 293, and where hours are missing the mission's site is the authority, not any directory, including this one. Then check the office type, because the next article in this series is about how much the type matters.
The word is the easy part
A directory gets you to a door. Whether that door can sign your document depends on the office's rank and your task, which is what the Honorary or Real checker was built to answer. Read the jurisdiction first, and the word consulate stops being a gamble.