House numbering
Encyclopedia
House numbering is the system of giving a unique number
to each building
in a street
or area, with the intention of making it easier to locate a particular building. The house number is often part of a postal address
.
House numbering schemes vary by place, and in many cases even within cities. In some areas of the world, including many remote areas, houses are not numbered at all, instead simply being named.
is said to have been the first city to introduce house numbering, on the Pont Notre-Dame
in 1512.
In Europe
the most common house numbering scheme is to number each plot on one side of the road with ascending odd numbers, from 1, and those on the other with ascending even numbers, from 2 or sometimes 0. The odd numbers are usually on the left side of the road, looking in the direction in which the numbers increase. Where additional buildings are inserted or subdivided, these are often suffixed a, b, etc. (in Spain and France, bis
, ter
, quater). Where buildings are later combined, they may use just one of the original numbers, combine them ("13/15"), or give their address as a range (e.g. "13‑17"; not to be construed as including the even numbers 14 and 16). Where some plots are not built upon, there may be considerable gaps in the numbering scheme. If a lot of buildings are later built along a stretch of the street, either a range of unused numbers above the current highest house number may be used, introducing confusing discontinuities, or the remainder of the street must be renumbered.
British houses started being numbered with the Postage Act of 1765. In rural areas many houses remain named but un-numbered. The odd numbers will typically, although not always, be on the left-hand side as seen from the centre of the town or village, with the lowest numbers at the end of the street closest to the town centre. Intermediate properties usually have a number suffixed A, B, C, etc., but there are several that have been given a half number, e.g. the old police station at 20½ Camberwell Church Street. At least one property (built next to no.2 after the street had been numbered) has been numbered zero.
Before the early/mid nineteenth century, it was common in England for numbering to proceed sequentially along one side of the road and then back down the other (in a similar way to "boustrephedon" writing). Subsequent changes to local numbering can present pitfalls to researchers using historic street directories
, for instance.
This approach – numbering all plots on one side of a street consecutively, continuing clockwise back down on the opposite side of the street – still exists, for example in Pall Mall
, culs-de-sac, streets with buildings only on one side, some new towns
, and in many villages in Wales
. For instance, 10 Downing Street
, the official home of the First Lord of the Treasury
(usually the Prime Minister
), is next door to 11 Downing Street
, the home of the Second Lord of the Treasury
(usually the Chancellor of the Exchequer
). Houses which surround squares are usually numbered consecutively clockwise.
Consecutive numbering is also used in some cases where only one side of the road is built up, as in Crayfield Road, Levenshulme
, whose southern side is a former railway (now a cycle track).
Some UK local authorities avoid the number 13 for house numbering, because that number is considered unlucky.
In Haarlem
, Netherlands
, red numbers are used for upstairs apartments.
In Venice
, houses are numbered within districts known as sestieri, resulting in just six series for the entire city. In Genoa
and in Florence
houses are marked with black (sometimes also blue in Florence) numbers while businesses are usually (but not always) given red numbers, resulting in two distinct series for every street. The street numbers of businesses are denoted in writing (e.g., documents, online directories, etc.) by the addition of the letter "r" -- e.g., Via dei Servi 21r.
In Central
and Eastern Europe
, with the exceptions below, houses are typically numbered in the European style. Many streets, however, use the "boustrephedon" system described above.
and Slovak
cities and settlements, two numbering systems are used concurrently.
The basic house number is the "old" or "descriptive number" (Czech
popisné číslo, Slovak
súpisné číslo). The descriptive number is unique within the municipal part (a village, a quarter, mostly for one cadastral area) or within a whole small municipality.
For makeshift and recreational buildings in the Czech Republic, "registration number" (evidenční číslo) from a separate number series is used instead of the descriptive number. Somewhere, this number begins with zero or with the letter "E" or has different colour to distinction or contains words like "nouzová stavba" (= makeshift structure), "chata" (= ca. weekend house) etc.
In some of settlements where streets have their names (mostly in cities), there are used also the "new" or "orientation numbers" (Czech orientační číslo, Slovak orientačné číslo) concurently. The orientation number is given by sequention within the street or square. If the building is corner or have two sides, it can have two or more orientation numbers, one for every of the adjacent streets or squares. Solitary houses distant from named streets have no orientation number usually. Somewhere, a name of a small quarter is used as a street name. If there is a new building between two older numbered ones, the orientation number is distinguished with an additional lower case (the sequention can be 5, 7, 9, 9a, 9b, 9c, 11, 13). In 1930s–1950s in Brno, lower cases were used for separate entries of modern block houses perpendicular to the street.
Either number may be used in addresses. Sometimes, businesses will use both numbers to avoid confusion, usually putting the descriptive (or registration) number first: "Hlavní 20/7." The two (or three) types of numbers are commonly distinguished by colour of the sign. Every municipality can have their own traditional or official rules and colours. In Prague
and many others Bohemia
n cities, descriptive numbers are red, orientation numbers are blue and "evidential" numbers are green or yellow or red. In many Bohemian municipalities, descriptive numbers are blue, black or are not unified. In Brno and some Moravian and Slovakian cities, descriptive numbers are white-black signs, orientation numbers are red-white signs. Many cities and municipalities have different rules.
Formerly, roman numerals signifying the municipal part were added to the description number: e. g. "125/III" means descriptive number 125 from the municipal part with number III (in Prague
, it was Malá Strana
). Roman numerals were used in both in cities and in village municipalities with more settlements. Nowadays, the name of the settlement is preferred instead of roman numerals.
The first descriptive numbering was ordered by Maria Theresa in 1770 and implemented in 1770–1771. The series was given successively as the soldiers went through the settlement describing houses with numbers. Thereafter, every new house get a next number independently on their location. Most of villages use their original number series from 1770–1771. In cities, houses was one or more times renumbered in order to be sequential – the first wave of renumbering come in 1805–1815. In 1857, the Austrian emperor allowed a new system of numbering by streets. This new system was introduced in the biggest cities (Prague, Brno) in 1860s. In 1884, land registration books was introduced and they used the old (description) numbers as a permanent and stabilized indentificator of buildings. The new (orientation) numbers stay to be used concurrently.
The double numbering existed also in some Austria
n cities.
and many other former USSR countries, the European style is generally used, with numbers starting from the end of the street closest to the town center. Buildings or plots at street intersections may be assigned a composite number, which includes the number along the intersecting street separated by a slash , like in Нахимова, 14/41 (14 is the number along Nakhimova street and 41 is the number along intersecting street).
The odd numbers are usually on the left side of the road, looking in the direction in which the numbers increase; though in some cities (including Saint Petersburg
) the odd numbers are on the right side.
In some cities, especially hosting large scientific or military research centers in Soviet time, the numbering might be different: houses may have numbers related to the block rather than the street, thus 12-й квартал, дом 3 (Block 12, House 3), similar to the Japanese and Korean systems (see below). Aktau
is one example of this.
When a numbered plot contains multiple buildings, they are assigned an additional component of the street address, called корпус (building), which is usually a sequentially assigned number unique within the plot (but sometimes contains letters as in 15а, 15б, 15в and so on). So, a Russian street address may look like Московское шоссе, дом 23, корпус 2 (Moscow Street, plot 23, building 2), or Льва Толстого, дом 14б (Leo Tolstoy Street, plot 14, building b).
On very long roads in suburban areas kilometer numbering system also may be used (like Australian rural numbering system). For example, 9-й км Воткинского шоссе (9th kilometer of Votkinsk Highway), and Шабердинский тракт, 7-й км (7th kilometer of Shaberdy Road).
"61, Alley 351, Lane 410, Gongguan St." allows direct navigation from
Gongguan St., whereas in North America, one would need to know where
the intervening, say, Jefferson Lane and Williams Alley were.
The above navigation being: on Gongguan St. turn right the lane
at house number 410, then left at the alley at house number 351,
proceed to house number 61.
(sixths) used in Venice
.
and New Zealand
, the current standard (Australia / New Zealand joint standard AS/NZS 4819:2003) for numbering newly created streets is to assign odd numbers to sites on the left and even numbers to the right when facing in the direction of increasing numbers (the European system). This standard came into force in 2003.
In New South Wales
, the vast majority of streets were numbered before 2003 with odd numbers assigned to houses on the right of the street when facing in the direction of increasing numbers, and there is no plan to re-assign these numbers.
On some urban roads (e.g. Parramatta Road
in Sydney) numbers will typically ascend until the road crosses a council or suburb boundary, then commence again at 1 or 2. Long roads can thus have several occurrences of each number. In semi-rural and rural areas, where houses and farms are widely spaced, a numbering system based on tens of metres or (less commonly) metres has been devised. Thus a farm 2300m from the start of the road, on the right-hand side would be numbered 230.
On most streets in the United States and Canada, odd numbers are on one side and even numbers on the other. Often the number assigned is proportional to the distance from some baseline, so not all numbers are used. On very long roads, four- and five-digit addresses are common.
In cities with a grid plan
of streets, addresses often increase by 100 for each cross street, though in some cities they are consecutive within each block, so that a block where one side is numbered 501, 503, 505, 507, 509, 511 is followed by a block beginning with 601.
Addresses may also correlate with a street-numbering system. Thus, in Cleveland, Ohio
, a building with the address 900 Euclid Avenue would be at the corner of Euclid Avenue and 9th Street. Similarly, in Philadelphia, a building whose address is "1610 Walnut Street" would be located on Walnut Street between 16th and 17th streets, more-or-less across the street from 1609. In Queens, New York City
, a so-called "Philadelphia Plan" uses a dash to separate the cross street number from the rest of the house number, as in 34-55 107th Street, home of Louis Armstrong
.
San Francisco has several numbering systems in different districts; where these systems meet, parallel streets may be numbered in opposite directions. For example, the streets parallel to and east of Masonic Avenue are numbered northward, while Masonic and parallel streets to the west are numbered southward.
Along the Overseas Highway
in the Florida Keys
, house numbers indicate their distance from Mile Marker 0 in Key West
. The mileage is found by dividing the house number by 1000 (for example, 77220 Overseas Highway is 77.2 miles from Mile Marker 0).
Buildings in many rural areas in the United States used to lack these kind of addresses. Instead, an old rural address might have been simply "Rural route 3, Box 15." However, the adoption of 9-1-1
emergency systems has required the adoption of street names and house numbers in rural areas, typically numbering 1000 for each mile from the nearest town center.
In areas of rural Wisconsin
, the address layout of many counties features a baseline in one corner of the county, with numbers increasing from that point and appended with a cardinal direction; for instance, an address on a north-south road 45 blocks north from the baseline is written as 'N4500', while an address 45 blocks west from the baseline on a east-west road is shown as 'W4500'. Some counties and suburban communities (such as Waukesha
and the Town
and City of Cedarburg
) use a two-part address for both directions for easier referencing within a map and the numbering system (N4500-W4500 for instance).
Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
lacks any house numbering whatsoever. Houses are referred to, instead, as (for example) "Junipero 3 SW of 10th", meaning "The third house on the west side of Junipero south of 10th."
numbers are a system of assigning numbers based on distance rather than strictly sequentially. Typically, each block is assigned 100 numbers, such that the building numbers on that block vary only in the last two digits. For example, in Washington, D.C.
, the block of 7th Street, N.W., between D and E streets, N.W., is designated as the 400 block, meaning that building numbers on that block are in the range from 400 to 499 inclusive. It is common to indicate block numbers on street signs.
Some localities, such as the Borough of Queens
in New York City
, use a block numbering system in which a hyphen separates the hundreds digit from the tens digit. For example, a building number that might elsewhere be written 16709 is instead written 167-09. In most cases, the first number refers to the street, avenue, drive, etc. where the numbering begins. For example 99-40 63rd Road is numbered because the starting point was 99th Street. Likewise, an address on a perpendicular block would have its number starting with 63-XX. In Queens (unlike other areas, such as Los Angeles, where one may see numbers such as 16700 Sunset Blvd.) rarely is the 00 number used to refer to an address, but rather the numbering starts at -01 or -02 depending on the side of the block.
Some localities in Utah
and Wisconsin
have a more elaborate system of block numbering. Such localities use compound block numbers to indicate the number of blocks from both the north-south and the east-west dividing lines. For example, an address in Utah might be of the form "226 N 3300 W" where other systems might use "226 33rd Ave NW". In this case, 226 is the house number, and "N 3300 W" is actually the street name. Such an address is in the northwest quadrant of the addressing system
. Another system, used in Wisconsin, might use "N112 W16709 Mequon Rd" rather than "16709 W. Mequon Rd". This numbering system is based on the southeast corner of each county and is based on a grid that will increase when traveling in a northerly or westerly direction using N and W, respectively. In Illinois
, specifically in DuPage and Kane
counties near Chicago
, addresses in unincorporated and newly annexed areas are given according to their placement in a square mile section
relative to downtown Chicago, specifically, the intersection of Madison St
and State St
. North-south streets use an address number beginning in N or S, and east-west streets use an address number beginning in W. The three-digit unique number that follows is assigned according to distance from the beginning of the quadrant. For example, "30W221 Butterfield Road" is in Naperville
, 30 miles west of downtown Chicago. Addresses in adjoining suburban Cook County
and Will County do not use this system, and instead use addresses that simply increase in number rather than have a letter such as "W" or "S" in the address. For example: "16701 South 96th Avenue" would be just south of 167th Street, and "9603 West 191st Street" would be just west of 96th Avenue.
use systems similar to those in Europe. Houses are numbered in ascending order from downtown to the border of the city. In Mexico, the cities are usually divided in Colonias, which are small or medium areas. The colonia is commonly included in the address before the postal code. Sometimes when houses merge in a street or new constructions are built after the numbering was made, the address can become ambiguous. When a number is repeated a letter is added to the newest house. For example, if there are two 35's, one remains as 35 and the second one becomes 35A or 35Bis
.
It is sometimes common that in remote towns or non-planned areas inside the cities that the streets do not have any name and the houses do not have numbers. In these cases the address of the houses are usually the name of the person or family, the name of the area or town, and "Dirección Conocida" (Known Address), which means that the house of the family is known by almost all the community. This kind of addressing is only used in remote towns or small communities near highways.
For people living near highways or roads the usual address is the kilometer of the road in which the house is established; if there's more than one, some references might be written or the "Dirección Conocida" may be added. In countries like Brazil
and Argentina
, but also in some villages in France
, this scheme is used also for streets in cities, where the house number is the distance, measured in meters, from the house to the start of the street.
Number
A number is a mathematical object used to count and measure. In mathematics, the definition of number has been extended over the years to include such numbers as zero, negative numbers, rational numbers, irrational numbers, and complex numbers....
to each building
Building
In architecture, construction, engineering, real estate development and technology the word building may refer to one of the following:...
in a street
Street
A street is a paved public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable...
or area, with the intention of making it easier to locate a particular building. The house number is often part of a postal address
Address (geography)
An address is a collection of information, presented in a mostly fixed format, used for describing the location of a building, apartment, or other structure or a plot of land, generally using political boundaries and street names as references, along with other identifiers such as house or...
.
House numbering schemes vary by place, and in many cases even within cities. In some areas of the world, including many remote areas, houses are not numbered at all, instead simply being named.
Europe
ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
is said to have been the first city to introduce house numbering, on the Pont Notre-Dame
Pont Notre-Dame
The Pont Notre-Dame is a bridge that crosses the Seine in Paris, France linking the quai de Gesvres on the Rive Droite with the quai de la Corse on the Île de la Cité...
in 1512.
In Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
the most common house numbering scheme is to number each plot on one side of the road with ascending odd numbers, from 1, and those on the other with ascending even numbers, from 2 or sometimes 0. The odd numbers are usually on the left side of the road, looking in the direction in which the numbers increase. Where additional buildings are inserted or subdivided, these are often suffixed a, b, etc. (in Spain and France, bis
BIS
Bis is a prefix or suffix designating the second instance of a thing, thus preceding ter.Bis can also refer to:* Bis , a Scottish pop band* Bis , a high-teens' magazine published by Kobunsha of Japan...
, ter
Ter
Ter is a prefix or suffix designating the third instance of a thing, thus following bis and preceding quater.Ter can also refer to:* River Ter, in Essex;* Ter , the debut album of American rock band Sweet Water...
, quater). Where buildings are later combined, they may use just one of the original numbers, combine them ("13/15"), or give their address as a range (e.g. "13‑17"; not to be construed as including the even numbers 14 and 16). Where some plots are not built upon, there may be considerable gaps in the numbering scheme. If a lot of buildings are later built along a stretch of the street, either a range of unused numbers above the current highest house number may be used, introducing confusing discontinuities, or the remainder of the street must be renumbered.
British houses started being numbered with the Postage Act of 1765. In rural areas many houses remain named but un-numbered. The odd numbers will typically, although not always, be on the left-hand side as seen from the centre of the town or village, with the lowest numbers at the end of the street closest to the town centre. Intermediate properties usually have a number suffixed A, B, C, etc., but there are several that have been given a half number, e.g. the old police station at 20½ Camberwell Church Street. At least one property (built next to no.2 after the street had been numbered) has been numbered zero.
Before the early/mid nineteenth century, it was common in England for numbering to proceed sequentially along one side of the road and then back down the other (in a similar way to "boustrephedon" writing). Subsequent changes to local numbering can present pitfalls to researchers using historic street directories
Kelly's Directory
Kelly's Directory was a trade directory in the United Kingdom that listed all businesses and tradespeople in a particular city or town, as well as a general directory of postal addresses of local gentry, landowners, charities, and other facilities. In effect, it was a Victorian version of today's...
, for instance.
This approach – numbering all plots on one side of a street consecutively, continuing clockwise back down on the opposite side of the street – still exists, for example in Pall Mall
Pall Mall, London
Pall Mall is a street in the City of Westminster, London, and parallel to The Mall, from St. James's Street across Waterloo Place to the Haymarket; while Pall Mall East continues into Trafalgar Square. The street is a major thoroughfare in the St James's area of London, and a section of the...
, culs-de-sac, streets with buildings only on one side, some new towns
New towns in the United Kingdom
Below is a list of some of the new towns in the United Kingdom created under the various New Town Acts of the 20th century. Some earlier towns were developed as Garden Cities or overspill estates early in the twentieth century. The New Towns proper were planned to disperse population following the...
, and in many villages in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. For instance, 10 Downing Street
10 Downing Street
10 Downing Street, colloquially known in the United Kingdom as "Number 10", is the headquarters of Her Majesty's Government and the official residence and office of the First Lord of the Treasury, who is now always the Prime Minister....
, the official home of the First Lord of the Treasury
First Lord of the Treasury
The First Lord of the Treasury is the head of the commission exercising the ancient office of Lord High Treasurer in the United Kingdom, and is now always also the Prime Minister...
(usually the Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
), is next door to 11 Downing Street
11 Downing Street
11 Downing Street , is the official residence of the Second Lord of the Treasury in Britain, who in modern times has always been the Chancellor of the Exchequer...
, the home of the Second Lord of the Treasury
Second Lord of the Treasury
The Second Lord of the Treasury is a member of the commission exercising the ancient office of Lord High Treasurer in the United Kingdom. Since 1827, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has always simultaneously held the office of Second Lord of the Treasury when he has not also been the Prime Minister...
(usually the Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
). Houses which surround squares are usually numbered consecutively clockwise.
Consecutive numbering is also used in some cases where only one side of the road is built up, as in Crayfield Road, Levenshulme
Levenshulme
Levenshulme is an urban area of the City of Manchester, in North West England. It borders Longsight, Gorton, Burnage, Heaton Chapel and Reddish, and is approximately halfway between Stockport and Manchester City Centre on the A6 road. The A6 bisects Levenshulme. The Manchester to London railway...
, whose southern side is a former railway (now a cycle track).
Some UK local authorities avoid the number 13 for house numbering, because that number is considered unlucky.
In Haarlem
Haarlem
Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...
, Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, red numbers are used for upstairs apartments.
In Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, houses are numbered within districts known as sestieri, resulting in just six series for the entire city. In Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
and in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
houses are marked with black (sometimes also blue in Florence) numbers while businesses are usually (but not always) given red numbers, resulting in two distinct series for every street. The street numbers of businesses are denoted in writing (e.g., documents, online directories, etc.) by the addition of the letter "r" -- e.g., Via dei Servi 21r.
In Central
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
and Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
, with the exceptions below, houses are typically numbered in the European style. Many streets, however, use the "boustrephedon" system described above.
Double numbering
In some CzechCzech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
and Slovak
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
cities and settlements, two numbering systems are used concurrently.
The basic house number is the "old" or "descriptive number" (Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
popisné číslo, Slovak
Slovak language
Slovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...
súpisné číslo). The descriptive number is unique within the municipal part (a village, a quarter, mostly for one cadastral area) or within a whole small municipality.
For makeshift and recreational buildings in the Czech Republic, "registration number" (evidenční číslo) from a separate number series is used instead of the descriptive number. Somewhere, this number begins with zero or with the letter "E" or has different colour to distinction or contains words like "nouzová stavba" (= makeshift structure), "chata" (= ca. weekend house) etc.
In some of settlements where streets have their names (mostly in cities), there are used also the "new" or "orientation numbers" (Czech orientační číslo, Slovak orientačné číslo) concurently. The orientation number is given by sequention within the street or square. If the building is corner or have two sides, it can have two or more orientation numbers, one for every of the adjacent streets or squares. Solitary houses distant from named streets have no orientation number usually. Somewhere, a name of a small quarter is used as a street name. If there is a new building between two older numbered ones, the orientation number is distinguished with an additional lower case (the sequention can be 5, 7, 9, 9a, 9b, 9c, 11, 13). In 1930s–1950s in Brno, lower cases were used for separate entries of modern block houses perpendicular to the street.
Either number may be used in addresses. Sometimes, businesses will use both numbers to avoid confusion, usually putting the descriptive (or registration) number first: "Hlavní 20/7." The two (or three) types of numbers are commonly distinguished by colour of the sign. Every municipality can have their own traditional or official rules and colours. In Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
and many others Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
n cities, descriptive numbers are red, orientation numbers are blue and "evidential" numbers are green or yellow or red. In many Bohemian municipalities, descriptive numbers are blue, black or are not unified. In Brno and some Moravian and Slovakian cities, descriptive numbers are white-black signs, orientation numbers are red-white signs. Many cities and municipalities have different rules.
Formerly, roman numerals signifying the municipal part were added to the description number: e. g. "125/III" means descriptive number 125 from the municipal part with number III (in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, it was Malá Strana
Malá Strana
Malá Strana is a district of the city of Prague, Czech Republic, and one of its most historic regions.The name translated into English literally means "Little Side", though it is frequently referred to as "Lesser Town", "Lesser Quarter", or "Lesser Side"...
). Roman numerals were used in both in cities and in village municipalities with more settlements. Nowadays, the name of the settlement is preferred instead of roman numerals.
The first descriptive numbering was ordered by Maria Theresa in 1770 and implemented in 1770–1771. The series was given successively as the soldiers went through the settlement describing houses with numbers. Thereafter, every new house get a next number independently on their location. Most of villages use their original number series from 1770–1771. In cities, houses was one or more times renumbered in order to be sequential – the first wave of renumbering come in 1805–1815. In 1857, the Austrian emperor allowed a new system of numbering by streets. This new system was introduced in the biggest cities (Prague, Brno) in 1860s. In 1884, land registration books was introduced and they used the old (description) numbers as a permanent and stabilized indentificator of buildings. The new (orientation) numbers stay to be used concurrently.
The double numbering existed also in some Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n cities.
Russia and former USSR countries
In RussiaRussia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and many other former USSR countries, the European style is generally used, with numbers starting from the end of the street closest to the town center. Buildings or plots at street intersections may be assigned a composite number, which includes the number along the intersecting street separated by a slash , like in Нахимова, 14/41 (14 is the number along Nakhimova street and 41 is the number along intersecting street).
The odd numbers are usually on the left side of the road, looking in the direction in which the numbers increase; though in some cities (including Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
) the odd numbers are on the right side.
In some cities, especially hosting large scientific or military research centers in Soviet time, the numbering might be different: houses may have numbers related to the block rather than the street, thus 12-й квартал, дом 3 (Block 12, House 3), similar to the Japanese and Korean systems (see below). Aktau
Aktau
Aktau , formerly known as Shevchenko , is a city in Kazakhstan's Mangyshlak Peninsula and country's only seaport on the Caspian Sea. It is the capital of Mangystau Province in western Kazakhstan...
is one example of this.
When a numbered plot contains multiple buildings, they are assigned an additional component of the street address, called корпус (building), which is usually a sequentially assigned number unique within the plot (but sometimes contains letters as in 15а, 15б, 15в and so on). So, a Russian street address may look like Московское шоссе, дом 23, корпус 2 (Moscow Street, plot 23, building 2), or Льва Толстого, дом 14б (Leo Tolstoy Street, plot 14, building b).
On very long roads in suburban areas kilometer numbering system also may be used (like Australian rural numbering system). For example, 9-й км Воткинского шоссе (9th kilometer of Votkinsk Highway), and Шабердинский тракт, 7-й км (7th kilometer of Shaberdy Road).
Taiwan
Taiwan's"61, Alley 351, Lane 410, Gongguan St." allows direct navigation from
Gongguan St., whereas in North America, one would need to know where
the intervening, say, Jefferson Lane and Williams Alley were.
The above navigation being: on Gongguan St. turn right the lane
at house number 410, then left at the alley at house number 351,
proceed to house number 61.
Japan and South Korea
In Japan and South Korea, a city is divided into small numbered zones. The houses within each zone are then labelled in the order in which they were constructed, or clockwise around the block. This system is comparable to the system of sestieriSestiere
A sestiere is a subdivision of certain Italian towns and cities. The word is from sesto, or sixth; and is thus used only for towns divided into six districts. The best-known example are the sestieri of Venice, but Ascoli Piceno, Genoa, Milan and Rapallo, for example, were also divided into sestieri...
(sixths) used in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
.
Australia / New Zealand
In AustraliaAustralia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, the current standard (Australia / New Zealand joint standard AS/NZS 4819:2003) for numbering newly created streets is to assign odd numbers to sites on the left and even numbers to the right when facing in the direction of increasing numbers (the European system). This standard came into force in 2003.
In New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, the vast majority of streets were numbered before 2003 with odd numbers assigned to houses on the right of the street when facing in the direction of increasing numbers, and there is no plan to re-assign these numbers.
On some urban roads (e.g. Parramatta Road
Parramatta Road
.Parramatta Road is the major historical east-west artery of metropolitan Sydney, Australia, connecting the Sydney with Parramatta. It is the eastern-most part of the Great Western Highway. Much of its traffic has been diverted to modern expressways such as the M4 and the City West Link...
in Sydney) numbers will typically ascend until the road crosses a council or suburb boundary, then commence again at 1 or 2. Long roads can thus have several occurrences of each number. In semi-rural and rural areas, where houses and farms are widely spaced, a numbering system based on tens of metres or (less commonly) metres has been devised. Thus a farm 2300m from the start of the road, on the right-hand side would be numbered 230.
United States and Canada
In cities with a grid plan
Grid plan
The grid plan, grid street plan or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid...
of streets, addresses often increase by 100 for each cross street, though in some cities they are consecutive within each block, so that a block where one side is numbered 501, 503, 505, 507, 509, 511 is followed by a block beginning with 601.
Addresses may also correlate with a street-numbering system. Thus, in Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
, a building with the address 900 Euclid Avenue would be at the corner of Euclid Avenue and 9th Street. Similarly, in Philadelphia, a building whose address is "1610 Walnut Street" would be located on Walnut Street between 16th and 17th streets, more-or-less across the street from 1609. In Queens, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, a so-called "Philadelphia Plan" uses a dash to separate the cross street number from the rest of the house number, as in 34-55 107th Street, home of Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
.
San Francisco has several numbering systems in different districts; where these systems meet, parallel streets may be numbered in opposite directions. For example, the streets parallel to and east of Masonic Avenue are numbered northward, while Masonic and parallel streets to the west are numbered southward.
Along the Overseas Highway
Overseas Highway
The Overseas Highway is a highway carrying U.S. Route 1 through the Florida Keys. Large parts of it were built on the former right-of-way of the Overseas Railroad, the Key West Extension of the Florida East Coast Railway. Completed in 1912, the Overseas Railroad was heavily damaged and partially...
in the Florida Keys
Florida Keys
The Florida Keys are a coral archipelago in southeast United States. They begin at the southeastern tip of the Florida peninsula, about south of Miami, and extend in a gentle arc south-southwest and then westward to Key West, the westernmost of the inhabited islands, and on to the uninhabited Dry...
, house numbers indicate their distance from Mile Marker 0 in Key West
Key West
Key West is an island in the Straits of Florida on the North American continent at the southernmost tip of the Florida Keys. Key West is home to the southernmost point in the Continental United States; the island is about from Cuba....
. The mileage is found by dividing the house number by 1000 (for example, 77220 Overseas Highway is 77.2 miles from Mile Marker 0).
Buildings in many rural areas in the United States used to lack these kind of addresses. Instead, an old rural address might have been simply "Rural route 3, Box 15." However, the adoption of 9-1-1
9-1-1
9-1-1 is the emergency telephone number for the North American Numbering Plan .It is one of eight N11 codes.The use of this number is for emergency circumstances only, and to use it for any other purpose can be a crime.-History:In the earliest days of telephone technology, prior to the...
emergency systems has required the adoption of street names and house numbers in rural areas, typically numbering 1000 for each mile from the nearest town center.
In areas of rural Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
, the address layout of many counties features a baseline in one corner of the county, with numbers increasing from that point and appended with a cardinal direction; for instance, an address on a north-south road 45 blocks north from the baseline is written as 'N4500', while an address 45 blocks west from the baseline on a east-west road is shown as 'W4500'. Some counties and suburban communities (such as Waukesha
Waukesha County, Wisconsin
Waukesha County is a county in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of 2008, the population was 380,629. Its county seat is Waukesha.-History:The part of Wisconsin that Waukesha County now occupies was a part of Michigan when Milwaukee County was organized in September 1834. On July 4, 1836, the...
and the Town
Cedarburg (town), Wisconsin
Cedarburg is a town in Ozaukee County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 5,744 at the 2000 census. The City of Cedarburg is located partially within the town. The unincorporated community of Hamilton is also located in the town....
and City of Cedarburg
Cedarburg, Wisconsin
Cedarburg is a city in Ozaukee County, Wisconsin, United States with Cedar Creek running through it. The city is bordered by the Village of Grafton to the east and the Town of Cedarburg elsewhere...
) use a two-part address for both directions for easier referencing within a map and the numbering system (N4500-W4500 for instance).
Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
Carmel-by-the-Sea, often called simply Carmel, is a small city in Monterey County, California, United States, founded in 1902 and incorporated in 1916. Situated on the Monterey Peninsula, the town is known for its natural scenery and rich artistic history...
lacks any house numbering whatsoever. Houses are referred to, instead, as (for example) "Junipero 3 SW of 10th", meaning "The third house on the west side of Junipero south of 10th."
Block numbers
BlockCity block
A city block, urban block or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design. A city block is the smallest area that is surrounded by streets. City blocks are the space for buildings within the street pattern of a city, they form the basic unit of a city's urban fabric...
numbers are a system of assigning numbers based on distance rather than strictly sequentially. Typically, each block is assigned 100 numbers, such that the building numbers on that block vary only in the last two digits. For example, in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, the block of 7th Street, N.W., between D and E streets, N.W., is designated as the 400 block, meaning that building numbers on that block are in the range from 400 to 499 inclusive. It is common to indicate block numbers on street signs.
Some localities, such as the Borough of Queens
Queens
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, use a block numbering system in which a hyphen separates the hundreds digit from the tens digit. For example, a building number that might elsewhere be written 16709 is instead written 167-09. In most cases, the first number refers to the street, avenue, drive, etc. where the numbering begins. For example 99-40 63rd Road is numbered because the starting point was 99th Street. Likewise, an address on a perpendicular block would have its number starting with 63-XX. In Queens (unlike other areas, such as Los Angeles, where one may see numbers such as 16700 Sunset Blvd.) rarely is the 00 number used to refer to an address, but rather the numbering starts at -01 or -02 depending on the side of the block.
Some localities in Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
and Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
have a more elaborate system of block numbering. Such localities use compound block numbers to indicate the number of blocks from both the north-south and the east-west dividing lines. For example, an address in Utah might be of the form "226 N 3300 W" where other systems might use "226 33rd Ave NW". In this case, 226 is the house number, and "N 3300 W" is actually the street name. Such an address is in the northwest quadrant of the addressing system
Address (geography)
An address is a collection of information, presented in a mostly fixed format, used for describing the location of a building, apartment, or other structure or a plot of land, generally using political boundaries and street names as references, along with other identifiers such as house or...
. Another system, used in Wisconsin, might use "N112 W16709 Mequon Rd" rather than "16709 W. Mequon Rd". This numbering system is based on the southeast corner of each county and is based on a grid that will increase when traveling in a northerly or westerly direction using N and W, respectively. In Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, specifically in DuPage and Kane
Kane County, Illinois
Kane County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2010 census, it has a population of 515,269, which is an increase of 27.5% from 404,119 in 2000. Its county seat is Geneva, and its largest city is Aurora.- Geography :...
counties near Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, addresses in unincorporated and newly annexed areas are given according to their placement in a square mile section
Section (United States land surveying)
In U.S. land surveying under the Public Land Survey System , a section is an area nominally one square mile, containing , with 36 sections making up one survey township on a rectangular grid....
relative to downtown Chicago, specifically, the intersection of Madison St
Madison Street (Chicago)
Madison Street is a major east-west street in Chicago, Illinois. Prior to human intervention, the Chicago River emptied into Lake Michigan at the present day intersection of Madison Street and Michigan Avenue....
and State St
State Street (Chicago)
State Street is a large south-north street in Chicago, Illinois, USA and its south suburbs. It begins on the Near North Side at North Avenue. For much of its course, it lies between Wabash Avenue on the east and Dearborn Street/Lafayette Avenue on the west...
. North-south streets use an address number beginning in N or S, and east-west streets use an address number beginning in W. The three-digit unique number that follows is assigned according to distance from the beginning of the quadrant. For example, "30W221 Butterfield Road" is in Naperville
Naperville, Illinois
Naperville is a city in DuPage and Will Counties in Illinois in the United States, voted the second best place to live in the United States by Money Magazine in 2006. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 141,853. It is the fifth largest city in the state, behind Chicago,...
, 30 miles west of downtown Chicago. Addresses in adjoining suburban Cook County
Cook County, Illinois
Cook County is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois, with its county seat in Chicago. It is the second most populous county in the United States after Los Angeles County. The county has 5,194,675 residents, which is 40.5 percent of all Illinois residents. Cook County's population is larger than...
and Will County do not use this system, and instead use addresses that simply increase in number rather than have a letter such as "W" or "S" in the address. For example: "16701 South 96th Avenue" would be just south of 167th Street, and "9603 West 191st Street" would be just west of 96th Avenue.
Latin America
Some countries in Latin AmericaLatin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
use systems similar to those in Europe. Houses are numbered in ascending order from downtown to the border of the city. In Mexico, the cities are usually divided in Colonias, which are small or medium areas. The colonia is commonly included in the address before the postal code. Sometimes when houses merge in a street or new constructions are built after the numbering was made, the address can become ambiguous. When a number is repeated a letter is added to the newest house. For example, if there are two 35's, one remains as 35 and the second one becomes 35A or 35Bis
BIS
Bis is a prefix or suffix designating the second instance of a thing, thus preceding ter.Bis can also refer to:* Bis , a Scottish pop band* Bis , a high-teens' magazine published by Kobunsha of Japan...
.
It is sometimes common that in remote towns or non-planned areas inside the cities that the streets do not have any name and the houses do not have numbers. In these cases the address of the houses are usually the name of the person or family, the name of the area or town, and "Dirección Conocida" (Known Address), which means that the house of the family is known by almost all the community. This kind of addressing is only used in remote towns or small communities near highways.
For people living near highways or roads the usual address is the kilometer of the road in which the house is established; if there's more than one, some references might be written or the "Dirección Conocida" may be added. In countries like Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
and Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, but also in some villages in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, this scheme is used also for streets in cities, where the house number is the distance, measured in meters, from the house to the start of the street.