Permanent redirect / hiding the real URL

Hello,

I have a long URL that goes something like this:
http://www.domain.com/cities.php?hom...ld&x=466&y=440

Now, I was wondering if I could have the link appear as http://www.domain.com/cities/california.html

So, the HTML hyperlink would show http://www.domain.com/cities/california.html, and when people would click on http://www.domain.com/cities/california.html, their browser would show that they are viewing http://www.domain.com/cities/california.html

I heard this is good for SEO

However, in reality, the website would be http://www.domain.com/cities.php?hom...ld&x=466&y=440

How can I do that? I suppose It's done with .htaccesss, can you tell me what to put in there?

 

 

 

 

Top