You *must* remove the hyphen. According to the csql 2.0 documentation, here is the correct syntax to create keyspace:
<createKeyspaceStatement> ::= "CREATE" "KEYSPACE" <name> "WITH" <optionName> "=" <optionVal> ( "AND" <optionName> "=" <optionVal> )* ; <optionName> ::= <identifier> | <optionName> ":" <identifier> | <optionName> ":" <integer> ; <optionVal> ::= <stringLiteral> | <identifier> | <integer> ; The string "strategy_options:us-west=1;" matches the following syntax: <optionName> ":" <identifier> = <integer> Thus, "us-west" is an *identifier*, and again according to the documentation: An <identifier> is a letter followed by any sequence of letters, digits, or the underscore (_).