![Boulevard de Magenta (Paris), numéro 56, porte 02](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Boulevard_de_Magenta_%28Paris%29%2C_num%C3%A9ro_56%2C_porte_02.jpg)
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
An address is a collection of information, presented in a mostly fixed format, used to give the location of a building, apartment, or other structure or a plot of land, generally using political boundaries and street names as references, along w ...
. The term describes the number of any building (residential or commercial) with a mailbox, or even a vacant lot.
House numbering schemes vary by location, and in many cases even within cities. In some areas of the world, including many remote areas, houses are named but are not assigned numbers.
In many countries, the house number ''follows'' the name of the street; but in
anglophone
Speakers of English are also known as Anglophones, and the countries where English is natively spoken by the majority of the population are termed the ''Anglosphere''. Over two billion people speak English , making English the largest language ...
and
francophone
French became an international language in the Middle Ages, when the power of the Kingdom of France made it the second international language, alongside Latin. This status continued to grow into the 18th century, by which time French was the l ...
countries, the house number normally ''precedes'' the name of the street.
History
![Goodman's Field](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Goodman%27s_Field.jpg)
A house numbering scheme was present in
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. The bridge is noted for being the "most ancient" in Paris, in the se ...
in Paris in 1512. However, the purpose of the numbering was generally to determine the distribution of property ownership in the city, rather than for the purpose of organization.
In the 18th century the first street numbering schemes were applied across Europe, to aid in administrative tasks and the provision of services such as Mail delivery. The ''New View of London'' reported in 1708 that "at Prescott Street, Goodman's Fields, instead of
sign
A sign is an object, quality, event, or entity whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else. A natural sign bears a causal relation to its object—for instance, thunder is a sign of storm, or me ...
s, the houses are distinguished by numbers". Parts of the Paris suburbs were numbered in the 1720s; the houses in the Jewish quarter in the city of
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
in the
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire (german: link=no, Kaiserthum Oesterreich, modern spelling , ) was a Central-Eastern European multinational great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the realms of the Habsburgs. During its existence, ...
were numbered in the same decade to aid the authorities in the conscription of the
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
.
Street numbering took off in the mid-18th century, especially in
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
, where authorities were ordered to "fix numbers on the houses ... in little villages on the day before the troops march in". In the 1750s and 60s, street numbering on a large scale was applied in
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
, London, Paris, and
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
, as well as many other cities across Europe. On 1 March 1768,
King Louis XV of France decreed that all French houses outside of Paris affix house numbers, primarily for tracking troops quartered in civilian homes.
Due to the gradual development of house numbering and street addressing schemes, reform efforts occur periodically. For instance, some US cities started efforts to improve their schemes in the late 19th century.
Australia and New Zealand
![RAPID number](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/RAPID_number.jpg)
In Australia and New Zealand, the current standard (Australia/New Zealand joint standard AS/NZS 4819:2011 – Rural & Urban Addressing) is directed at local governments that have the primary responsibility for addressing and road naming. The standard calls for lots and buildings on newly created streets to be assigned odd numbers (on the left) and even numbers (on the right) when facing in the direction of increasing numbers (the European system) reflecting already common practice. It first came into force in 2003 under AS/NZS 4819:2003 – Geographic Information – Rural & Urban Addressing. Exceptions are where the road forms part of the boundary between different council areas or cities. For example, Underwood Road in
Rochedale South
}
Rochedale South is a northern residential suburb in the City of Logan, Queensland, Australia. In the , Rochedale South had a population of 15,317 people.
Geography
Its northern boundaries of Priestdale and Underwood Road form the boundary of ...
, part of which is divided between
Logan City
Logan City is a local government area situated within the south of the Brisbane metropolitan area in South East Queensland, Australia. Situated between the City of Brisbane to the north and the City of Gold Coast to the south, the City also bor ...
and the
City of Brisbane
The City of Brisbane is a local government area (LGA) which comprises the inner portion of the metropolitan area of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, Australia. Its governing body is the Brisbane City Council. Unlike LGAs in the other mainl ...
.
Where a block of land, such as No. 9, is divided into parts, the sequence might go 7, 9, 9A, 11, 13. Conversely should block of land be combined such as 51, 53, 55, the numbers might go 49, 51–55, 57. An older form of 9A is 9½.
In
New South Wales
)
, nickname =
, image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, es ...
and
South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...
, the vast majority of streets were numbered when the land titles were created, with odd numbers assigned to houses on the right of the street when facing the direction along which numbers increase. There is no plan to reassign these numbers.
On some long urban roads (e.g.,
Parramatta Road
Parramatta Road is the major historical east-west artery of metropolitan Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, connecting the Sydney CBD with Parramatta. It is the easternmost part of the Great Western Highway. Since the 1990s its role has been a ...
in Sydney) numbers ascend until the road crosses a council or suburb boundary, then start again at 1 or 2, where a street sign gives the name of the relevant area – these streets have repeating numbers. 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 from the start of the road, on the right-hand side would be numbered 230.
Ballarat
Ballarat ( ) is a city in the Central Highlands (Victoria), Central Highlands of Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 Census, Ballarat had a population of 116,201, making it the third largest city in Victoria. Estimated resid ...
Central, Victoria, uses the US system of increasing house numbers by 100 after a major cross street. Streets are designated North or South depending upon their relative position to Sturt Street.
The number system will always start with No. 1 or No. 2 at the datum point of the street, with number 1 typically being on the left side of the street.
East Asia
![House number of TRA Jingmei Station 20061203](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/House_number_of_TRA_Jingmei_Station_20061203.jpg)
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
sestieri
A (plural: ) is a subdivision of certain Italian towns and cities. The word is from (‘sixth’), so it is thus used only for towns divided into six districts. The best-known example is the ''sestieri'' of Venice, but Ascoli Piceno, Genoa, Mi ...
(''sixths'') used in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
. Visitors to a large, complex city like Tokyo often must resort to asking for directions at a
local police substation.
In Hong Kong, a former British colony, the British and European norm to number houses on one side of the street with odd numbers, and the other side with even numbers, is generally followed. Some roads or streets along the coastline may however have numbering only on one side, even if the opposite side is later
reclaimed
Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new Terrestrial ecoregion, land from oceans, list of seas, seas, Stream bed, riverbeds or lak ...
. These roads or streets include
Ferry Street,
Connaught Road West
Connaught Road is a major thoroughfare on the north shore of Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong. It links Shing Sai Road in Kennedy Town to the west and Harcourt Road in Admiralty to the east.
Location
The road consists of two adjoining sections, ...
, and
Gloucester Road.
Most
mainland Chinese
Mainland Chinese or Mainlanders are Chinese people who live in or have recently emigrated from mainland China, defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (PRC) except for Hong Kong ( SAR of the PRC), Macau (SAR of the PRC), ...
cities use the European system, with odd numbers on one side of the road and even numbers on the opposite side. In high-density old Shanghai, a street number may be either a ''hao'' ("号" hào) or ''nong'' ("弄" nòng/lòng), both of them being numbered successively. A ''hao'' refers a door rather than a building, for example, if a building with the address 25 Wuming Rd is followed by another building, which has three entrances opening to the street, the latter will be numbered as three different ''hao'', from 27 to 29 Wuming Rd.
A ''nong'', sometimes translated as "lane", refers to a block of buildings. So if in the above example the last building is followed by an enclosed compound, it will have the address "lane 31, Wuming Rd". A ''nong'' is further subdivided in its own ''hao'', which do not correlate with the ''hao'' of the street, so the full address of an apartment within a compound may look like "Apartment 5005, no. 7, lane 31, Wuming Rd".
In
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
, the European system is used in cities, and is mostly same as the cases of mainland Chinese cities and Hong Kong. Longer roads are usually divided into several sections to prevent the road having too many numbers (normally more than 1000). In rural areas, village or settlement name is used in house numbering, where numbering norms are not certain. A ''xiang''("巷" xiàng, translated as "lane") indicates a branch from a main road; and a ''nong'' ("弄" nòng/lòng, translated as "alley") indicates a branch from a ''xiang''. For many reasons such as new establishment of buildings or several apartments in a building, the ''zhi'' ("之" zhī, normally simply translated as a hyphen, "–") is used.
Southeast Asia
The most common street address formats in Vietnam are:
* A number followed by the street name, for example "". This is the most basic, most common format.
* A number with an alphabetic suffix: "", "", etc. This format occurs when a property is numbered 123 but later subdivided into two houses with different addresses.
* If the house lies on an
hẻm/ngõ (alley), the alley number is combined with the house number: for example, in "", 123 is the alley's address, and 3 is the house number on that alley.
* More complex house numbers may occur on alleys that branch from other alleys or properties on alleys are subdivided, for example "" or "". An extreme example would be "", which is located on 3rd alley off 12th alley off 14th alley off 7th alley off 182nd street.
Another scheme is based on residential areas called . A is addressed by house number, road, and , for example "". Some localities still use an older address format based on neighborhood (): for example, in "", 7A is the neighborhood number. This confusing format is being gradually phased out in favor of the more modern formats above.
West Asia
Generally in Iran and especially in the capital
Tehran
Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...
odd numbers are all on one side and the even numbers opposite along streets. Infrequently, this style confuses people because this is not how it works everywhere in the city and sometimes the numbers get intertwined with each other. In the rural parts, some houses have no number at all and some have their owner's details as the number instead. In some cases, using the number 13 is skipped replacing it with equivalents such as: 12+1 or 14−1.
Northern and Western Europe
![House numbers odd and even](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/House_numbers_odd_and_even.svg)
In Europe the most common house numbering scheme, in this article referred to as the "European" 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, c, etc. (in Spain, France and
Afragola
Afragola (; nap, Afrahola , ) is a city and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Naples, in Italy. It is one of the 100 largest Italian cities (the ones that have a population of more than 63,000 inhabitants).
The communal territory, measurin ...
until 2001, ''
bis'', ''
ter
Ter or TER may refer to:
Places
* River Ter, in Essex, England
* Ter (river), in Catalonia
* Ter (department), a region in France
* Torre (river), (Slovene: ''Ter''), a river in Italy
* Ter, Ljubno, a settlement in the Municipality of Ljubno ob ...
'', ''quater'', ''quinquies'' etc.). Where buildings are later combined, one of the original numbers may be used, the numbers may be combined ("13/15"), or the numbers may be used as a given range (e.g. "13–17"; not to be construed as including the even numbers 14 and 16). Buildings with multiple entrances may have a single number for the entire building or a separate number for each entrance.
Where plots are not built upon gaps may be left in the numbering scheme or marked on maps for the plots. If buildings are added to a stretch of old street the following may be used rather than a long series of suffixes to the existing numbers: a new name for a new estate/block along the street (e.g. ''1–100 Waterloo Place/Platz, Sud St.''.); a new road name inserted along the course of a street either with or without mention of the parent street; unused numbers ''above'' the highest house number may be used (although rarely as this introduces confusing discontinuity), or the upper remainder of the street is renumbered.
Other local numbering schemes are also in use for administrative or historic reasons, including clockwise and anti-clockwise numbering, district-based numbering, distance-based numbering, and double numbering.
Finland
The Finnish numbering system incorporates solutions to the problems which arose with mass urbanization and increase in building density. Addresses always are formatted as street name followed by street address number. With new,
infill
In urban planning, infill, or in-fill, is the rededication of land in an urban environment, usually open-space, to new construction. Infill also applies, within an urban polity, to construction on any undeveloped land that is not on the urban mar ...
building, new addresses are created by adding letters representing the new ground level access point within the old street address, and if there are more apartments than ground level access points, a number added for the apartment number within the new development. The original street numbering system followed the pattern of odd numbers on one side and even numbers on the other side of the street, with lower numbers towards the center of town and higher numbers further away from the center.
The infill numbering system avoids renumbering the entire street when developments are modified. For example, Mannerheimintie 5 (a large mansion house on a large city plot) was demolished and replaced with 4 new buildings each with 2 stairwells all accessible from Mannerheimintie. The 8 new access stairwells are labelled A B C D E F G and H (each with the letter visible above the stairwell). Each stairwell has 4 apartments on 5 floors, so the new development has 160 new addresses in all running from Mannerheimintie 5 A 1 through to Mannerheimintie 5 H 160. The opposite example is where old, narrow buildings have been combined; Iso Roobertinkatu 36, 38 and 40 were demolished in the 1920s and the new building has the address Iso Roobertinkatu 36–40.
In the rural parts of Finland, a variant of this method is used. As in towns, odd and even numbers are on opposite sides of the road, but many numbers are skipped. Instead, the house number indicates the distance in tens of metres from the start of the road. For example, "Pengertie 159" would be 1590 metres from the place where Pengertie starts.
Netherlands
When more buildings are constructed than numbers were originally allotted, discontinuity of numbering is avoided by giving multiple adjacent buildings the same number, with a letter suffix starting at "A". The "Bis" suffix is used occasionally.
Each house or apartment can be uniquely identified by a combination of a postcode, a street number and a suffix.
Apartments within the same building can be distinguished various ways: by assigning each apartment their own street number, by assigning a simple prefix (generally a letter) or by assigning a complex prefix that takes into account both the floor and the apartment on the floor (e.g. B3).
In
Haarlem
Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English) is a city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland. Haarlem is situated at the northern edge of the Randstad, one of the most populated metropoli ...
, Netherlands, red numbers are used for upstairs apartments.
Portugal
In Portugal, the European scheme is most commonly used. However, in
Porto
Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...
and several other cities in the Portuguese
Northern region, as well as in the
Cascais
Cascais () is a town and municipality in the Lisbon District of Portugal, located on the Portuguese Riviera. The municipality has a total of 214,158 inhabitants in an area of 97.40 km2. Cascais is an important tourism in Portugal, tourist de ...
Municipality (near
Lisbon
Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...
), houses are numbered in the North American style, with the number assigned being proportional to the distance in meters from the baseline of the street.
Lisbon
Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...
numbering is European and furthermore 'from the river, odd numbers left'. Because the
Tagus
The Tagus ( ; es, Tajo ; pt, Tejo ; see #Name, below) is the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula. The river rises in the Montes Universales near Teruel, in mid-eastern Spain, flows , generally west with two main south-westward sections ...
borders Lisbon on the south and the east, this means that north-south streets are numbered low from the south, and east-west streets are numbered low from the east.
In many new planned neighborhoods of Portugal houses and other buildings are identified by a ''lote'' (plot) number without reference to their street. This is in law the ''número de polícia'', which literally means ''police's number'' – the police formerly assigned the numbers rather than the town hall. The ''lote'' is the construction plot number used in the
urban plan
Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...
, a consecutive number series applies to a broad neighborhood. In theory and in most cases, the use of a ''lote'' number system is provisional, being replaced by a traditional street number system some time after the neighborhood is built and inhabited. In some neighborhoods, ''lote'' numbers are kept for many years, some never being replaced by street numbers.
The relatively new planned neighborhood of
Parque das Nações
The Parque das Nações (; en, Park of the Nations), colloquially known as Expo (as the site of the 1998 Lisbon World Exposition), is a ''freguesia'' (civil parish) of Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. Located in eastern Lisbon, Parque das Naçõe ...
in Lisbon has also a different numbering scheme: each building is referred by its plot, parcel, and building (in Portuguese: ''lote'', ''parcela'', ''prédio'').
United Kingdom
![House numbers clockwise](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/House_numbers_clockwise.jpg)
The European system is most widely used. The odd numbers will typically be on the left-hand side as seen in the direction of increasing numbers (most commonly with the lowest numbers at the end of the street closest to the town or village centre). Intermediate properties usually have a number suffixed A, B, C, etc., much more rarely instead being given a half number, e.g. the old police station at Camberwell Church Street. It is extremely rare for a property (built next to no. 2 after the street had been numbered) to be zero (0) or named Minusone; in 2013 researchers found these instances once in
Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area.
Until the early 1800s, the a ...
and once in
Newbury. In 2022, starting to type "0," into the Royal Mail postcode search revealed Middlesbrough is becoming a hotbed of zero-numbered properties, with four listed properties, whilst Birmingham, Ellesmere Port, Lincoln and London list only one each. In many rural streets, significantly built alongside before 1900, houses remain named and unnumbered.
In some places, particularly when open land, a river or a large church fronts one side, all plots on one side of a street are numbered consecutively. Such a street if modern and long is more likely to be numbered using odd numbers, starting at 1. Along oldest streets, numbering is usually clockwise and consecutive: for example in
Pall Mall, some
new towns
A planned community, planned city, planned town, or planned settlement is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed on previously undeveloped land. This contrasts with settlements that evolve ...
, and in many villages in Wales. This often also applies to
culs-de-sac and standalone
terraces. For instance,
10 Downing Street
10 Downing Street in London, also known colloquially in the United Kingdom as Number 10, is the official residence and executive office of the first lord of the treasury, usually, by convention, the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Along wi ...
, the official home of the
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
, is next door to
11 Downing Street. Houses which surround squares, as well as market places, are usually numbered consecutively clockwise.
In the early to mid 19th century numbering of long urban streets commonly changed from clockwise (strict consecutive) to odds facing evens, particularly when roads were extended into new suburbs. Where this took place it presents a street-long pitfall to researchers using historic
street directories and other records. A very rare variation may be seen where a
high street
High Street is a common street name for the primary business street of a city, town, or village, especially in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. It implies that it is the focal point for business, especially shopping. It is also a metonym fo ...
(main street) continues from a less commercial part – a road which breaks the UK conventions by not starting at 1 or 2. On one side of the main road between Stratford and Leytonstone houses up to no. 122 are "Leytonstone Road". The next house is "124 High Road, Leytonstone".
In some villages, a single numbering system covers the entire settlement, especially in rural areas without formal street names. In this case the house number is appended directly to the village name in addresses. This often coexists with newer developments within the same village that use street names, e.g. "58 Dorfield" alongside "3 Church Close, Dorfield", although to avoid confusion the older houses may eventually gain street names of their own while keeping their numbers ("58 Axtley Road, Dorfield").
Developers may avoid the number 13 for house numbering as in Iran, because that number is
considered by some to be unlucky.
Blocks of flats (apartments) are treated in two ways:
*Flats numbered individually as part of the street. A lintel will typically be embossed or metalled "1–24 Acacia Avenue" or "Flats 1–24 Acacia Avenue".
*Flats numbered within a building. The building retains its own number (or name) on the street e.g. "Flat 24, 1 Acacia Avenue" or increasingly as commonly: "Apartment 9D, Newhouse Court, 1 Acacia Avenue". Outside the number of flats is discreetly shown or not revealed. Where flats are lettered, this can also be indicated by appending the letter to the building number: "Flat D, 1 Acacia Avenue" may also be "1D Acacia Avenue" (generally only one of these formats will be officially used).
*In some parts of Scotland, particularly Aberdeen and Dundee, flats in tenement blocks may be numbered as follows; "Flat 3/L, 1 Acacia Avenue". In this numbering system 3 refers to the floor (with G or 0 being used for the ground floor) and L or R indicating whether the flat is on the left or right from the entrance of the block.
Marking of numbers
In the UK street numbering and street signposts vary across local authorities. Numbering plates (or similar) are overwhelmingly at the discretion of house owners.
In the UK
fanlight
A fanlight is a form of lunette window, often semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open fan. It is placed over another window or a doorway, and is sometimes hinged to a transom. Th ...
s in front doors were introduced in the 1720s in which the house number may be engraved. Contemporary architecture and modern house building techniques see alternatively acrylic, aluminium, or glass, ceramic, brass, slate, or stone used.
Southern Europe
Italy
Italy mostly follows the European scheme described above but there are some exceptions, generally for historical reasons.
In
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
, houses are numbered within six named series (one per ''
sestiere
A (plural: ) is a subdivision of certain Italian towns and cities. The word is from (‘sixth’), so it is thus used only for towns divided into six districts. The best-known example is the ''sestieri'' of Venice, but Ascoli Piceno, Genoa, M ...
'' district). Similarly, small villages in rural areas may also occasionally use a single progressive series for all house numbers.
In
Genoa
Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...
,
Savona
Savona (; lij, Sann-a ) is a seaport and ''comune'' in the west part of the northern Italy, Italian region of Liguria, capital of the Province of Savona, in the Riviera di Ponente on the Mediterranean Sea.
Savona used to be one of the chie ...
and
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
houses are marked with black (sometimes blue in Florence) numbers; businesses are usually (but not always) given red numbers, giving up to two distinct, numerically overlapping series per street. Those of businesses are denoted in all other writing (documents, online directories, etc.) by the addition of the letter "r" for ''rosso'' (e.g. "Via dei Servi 21r").
Turkey
In most of Turkey, currently the European house numbering scheme is applied. The
Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality
)
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code = 34000 to 34990
, area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side)
, registration_plate = 34
, blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD
, blank_in ...
introduced new house numbering and street signs in 2007 by two official designers.
[http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/cumartesi/6718942.asp , Istanbul's red signs. (Turkish)]
File:House Number Foça Turkey (Φώκαια).jpg, House number in Foça
Foça is a town and district in Turkey's İzmir Province, on the Aegean Sea, Aegean coast. The town of Foça is situated at about northwest of İzmir's city center. The district also has a township with its own municipality named Yenifoça (lite ...
Central and Eastern Europe
In
Central
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...
and Eastern Europe, with some exceptions, houses are typically numbered in the European style. Many streets, however, use the "
boustrophedon
Boustrophedon is a style of writing in which alternate lines of writing are reversed, with letters also written in reverse, mirror-style. This is in contrast to modern European languages, where lines always begin on the same side, usually the le ...
" system.
File:Wien Hietzinger Hauptstr 28.jpg, House number in Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
File:Bielsko-Biała, Wzgórze 15 tabliczka.jpg, Polish house number
File:Domovní čísla Záběhlice.jpg, A typical Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
combination: red conscription number above, blue orientation number below
File:Berlin-Charlottenburg, portal of the house 26a Kurfürstendamm.JPG, House number 26a on Kurfürstendamm
The Kurfürstendamm (; colloquially ''Ku'damm'', ; en, Prince Elector Embankment) is one of the most famous avenues in Berlin. The street takes its name from the former ''Kurfürsten'' (prince-electors) of Brandenburg. The broad, long boulevar ...
in Berlin
Austria
A double numbering system has been used, similar to the system in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which also were formerly parts of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
.
Czech Republic and Slovakia
![House numbers Prague map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/House_numbers_Prague_map.jpg)
In some Czech and Slovak cities and settlements, two numbering systems are used concurrently.
The basic house number is the "old" or "conscription number" ( cs, popisné číslo, sk, súpisné číslo). The conscription 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" () from a separate number series is used instead of the descriptive number. Typically, this number begins with zero or with the letter "E", or has different colour, or contains words like ("makeshift structure") or ("weekend house"), etc.
In some settlements where streets have names (mostly in cities), "new" or "orientational numbers" ( cs, orientační číslo, link=no, sk, orientačné číslo, link=no) are also used concurrently. The orientational numbers are arranged sequentially within the street or square. If the building is on a corner or has two sides, it can have two or more orientation numbers, one for each of the adjacent streets or squares. Solitary houses distant from named streets often have no orientation number. In some places, the name of a small quarter is used instead of a street name. If there is a new building between two older numbered ones, the orientation number is distinguished with an additional lower case letter (for example, the sequence could be 5, 7, 9, 9a, 9b, 9c, 11, 13). In the 1930–1950s in
Brno
Brno ( , ; german: Brünn ) is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers, Brno has about 380,000 inhabitants, making it the second-largest city in the Czech Republic ...
, lower case letters were used for separate entrances 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. Each municipality can have its own traditional or official rules and colours. In
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
and many other
Bohemia
Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...
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 Slovak 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 city district were added to the conscription number: e.g. "125/III" means conscription number 125 in district number III (in
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
, this was
Malá Strana
Malá Strana (Czech for "Little Side (of the River)", ) or more formally Menší Město pražské () is a district of the city of Prague, Czech Republic, and one of its most historic neighbourhoods.
In the Middle Ages, it was a dominant center o ...
). Roman numerals were used both in cities and in village municipalities with more settlements. Nowadays, the name of the settlement is preferred instead of Roman numerals.
The first conscription numbering was ordered by
Maria Theresa
Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina (german: Maria Theresia; 13 May 1717 – 29 November 1780) was ruler of the Habsburg dominions from 1740 until her death in 1780, and the only woman to hold the position ''suo jure'' (in her own right). ...
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 was allocated the next number sequentially, irrespective of its location. Most villages still use their original number series from 1770 to 1771. In cities, houses have been renumbered once or more often to be sequentialthe first wave of renumbering came 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 the 1860s. In 1884, land registration books were introduced and they used the old (conscription) numbers as a permanent and stable identifier of buildings. The new (orientation) numbers continue to be used concurrently.
Germany
In Germany, the European scheme (ascending odd/even numbers, see above) is usually used. In most cases, the numbers increase in the direction away from the town/city centre. Some places use a clockwise scheme for historical reasons, called ''Hufeisennummerierung'' ("horseshoe numbering") due to the progression of the numbers. This includes
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
, parts of
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
and some other towns in northern Germany.
In some older streets in northern and eastern Germany, mainly in the former
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia (german: Königreich Preußen, ) was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Re ...
and adjoining areas, including parts of
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
and
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
, the "horseshoe" numbering system (counter-clockwise "boustrophedon"-style numbering) was used for the numbering of new streets up until the 1920s, after which the European system was introduced for new streets.
Under the horseshoe numbering scheme, starting from one end, the buildings on the right side of the street were numbered sequentially from the near end to the far end of the street. The next number was then assigned to the last building on the left, opposite side of the street, the following numbers sequentially doubling back along the left side of the street. The building with the highest number would be the first on the left side, facing building number 1 across the street. The horseshoe numbering system remains in use in older streets in many German cities, notably Berlin, although newer adjoining streets may use modern European numbering.
Kurfürstendamm
The Kurfürstendamm (; colloquially ''Ku'damm'', ; en, Prince Elector Embankment) is one of the most famous avenues in Berlin. The street takes its name from the former ''Kurfürsten'' (prince-electors) of Brandenburg. The broad, long boulevar ...
in Berlin is a well-known example of a street where the horseshoe numbering scheme is still in use, although the numbering today starts with 11 at
Breitscheidplatz
Breitscheidplatz () is a major public square in the inner city of Berlin, Germany. Together with the Kurfürstendamm boulevard, it marks the centre of former West Berlin and the present-day City West. It is named after Rudolf Breitscheid.
Locat ...
, with number 237 across the street being the highest number.
Very small villages sometimes number all buildings in the village sequentially according to their date of construction, and independent of the street they are on. However, this scheme is being phased out because it makes it hard to find a building by its address.
Former Soviet Union
In Russia and many other former
USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
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 (russian: link=no, дробь), 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 ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
) the odd numbers are on the right side. Some cities (for example,
Nizhniy Novgorod
Nizhny Novgorod ( ; rus, links=no, Нижний Новгород, a=Ru-Nizhny Novgorod.ogg, p=ˈnʲiʐnʲɪj ˈnovɡərət ), colloquially shortened to Nizhny, from the 13th to the 17th century Novgorod of the Lower Land, formerly known as Gork ...
) have mixed numbering: odd numbers on the right in some parts of the city and on the left in others.
Soviet era housing districts (
microdistrict
Microdistrict, or microraion (russian: микрорайо́н, ''mikrorajón''), is a residential complex—a primary structural element of the residential area construction in the Soviet Union and in some post-Soviet and former Socialist st ...
s) often have a complicated network of access lanes thought too small to merit their own names. Buildings in these lanes are ascribed to larger streets which may be quite far from their location; a building placed along a street may sometimes be ascribed to another street, which sometimes makes finding a building by its address a challenging task.
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),
[Related discussion]
additional text. similar to the Japanese and Korean systems.
Aktau
Aktau ( kk, Aqtau, Ақтау , russian: Актау) is a city in Kazakhstan, located on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea. Its current name means "white mountain" in Kazakh, which may be due to its cliffs that overlook the Caspian. From 1964 to ...
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, a 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).
File:Lavrska Street, 1 (former Mazepy Street, 17) in Kyiv.jpg, In July 2010, after part of the existing street in Kyiv
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
had been split off and renamed, the buildings got both new street names and new numbers.
File:Табличка с номером дома в В. Новгороде.jpg, Composite house numbers on street intersection, Veliky Novgorod
Veliky Novgorod ( rus, links=no, Великий Новгород, t=Great Newtown, p=vʲɪˈlʲikʲɪj ˈnovɡərət), also known as just Novgorod (), is the largest city and administrative centre of Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It is one of the ol ...
Latin America
![House numbers meters](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/House_numbers_meters.jpg)
In Latin America, some countries, like Mexico and Uruguay, 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 re-used, a letter is added for the newer address. For example, if there are two 35s, one remains as "35", and the second one becomes "35A" or "35
Bis".
It is sometimes common 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 a person or family, the name of the area or town, or ''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 distance of the road in which the house is established; if there is more than one address, some references might be written or the ''Dirección Conocida'' may be added.
In Uruguay, most house numbering starts at a high number among the hundreds or the thousands. The system is similar to the French-Spanish one: when a house is divided the term 'bis' is added with the difference that no single term designates the third: when a house is divided or added between another the term 'bis' is repeated as many divisions have been made or houses added in between, for example '3217 bis bis' corresponds to the third house from the 3217th, and so on, when many houses are merged the lowest number is used, leaving the in-between numbers missing. Also there are cases when no number is assigned, this occurs mostly in peripheral areas inside the cities, low house numbering occurs in small locations and in balneary areas houses are designated by name rather than number.
In countries like Colombia, Brazil and Argentina, a 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. In Venezuela, houses, buildings, and streets have names instead of numbers.
North America
![Hamilton County Street Address map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Hamilton_County_Street_Address_map.png)
In the United States and Canada, streets are usually numbered with odd on one side and even on the other. The specific ordering of the numbers vary based on the policies of the local municipality. Generally, three different systems exist:
*Streets may be numbered strictly sequentially, starting with 1 at the start of the street, and continuing in order skipping no numbers until the end. In these cases, if additional addresses are needed to be assigned to new buildings or buildings contain individual apartments, fractional house numbers may be used, or letter suffixes may be appended to the house number.
*Streets may be numbered from the most recent intersection. In these cases, numbers progress sequentially from each intersection, but skip to the next set of numbers at each cross street, usually in sets of even 100s. Thus, the first
block
Block or blocked may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting
* Block programming, the result of a programming strategy in broadcasting
* W242BX, a radio station licensed to Greenville, South Carolina, United States known as ''96.3 ...
on a street may start at 1, and continue up until the next block, when they start at 100, then 200, and so on. A block or other segment of a street that has 100 numbers allotted to it under such a scheme is called a "hundred block," e.g., "the 1400 block" if the numbers are 1400–1499.
[Addressing and Street Naming Guidelines and Procedures](_blank)
from the Montgomery County (Md.) Planning Department and the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission
The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) is a bi-county agency that administers parks and planning in Montgomery and Prince George's counties in Maryland.
History
The commission was formed in 1927 by the Maryland G ...
*Habitable structures in
alley
An alley or alleyway is a narrow lane, path, or passageway, often reserved for pedestrians, which usually runs between, behind, or within buildings in the older parts of towns and cities. It is also a rear access or service road (back lane ...
s may vary in numbering, either being numbered individually to a named alley, or being numbered to the street on the side that structure is on, possibly with a fractional or letter suffix.
*Streets may be numbered based on distances, where the house number is based on some mathematical formula according to the distance from the start of the numbering system. As an example, a numbering system can provide 1000 addresses per mile, 500 on each side of the street, amounting to an address pair (odd and even) every 10.56 feet. Thus,
a property numbered 1447 may be approximately from
the beginning point for the numbering system.
Even within these systems, there are also two ways to define the starting point for the numbering system. Some places will start the numbering system at the start of the street itself. Other places will define a numbering system based on a defined point or line, such as a municipal or county boundary, a physical barrier separating a community's sides such as a body of water, or a defined intersection near the center of the municipality, with numbers increasing generally as one gets further from the baseline, regardless of where streets start or stop. Some communities use a railroad through a community as the numerical starting point. Addresses in many cites using a defined point or line roughly follow
Cartesian coordinates
A Cartesian coordinate system (, ) in a plane is a coordinate system that specifies each point uniquely by a pair of numerical coordinates, which are the signed distances to the point from two fixed perpendicular oriented lines, measured in t ...
.
File:Manhattan - 9 West 57th Street.JPG, 9 West 57th Street, New York City
File:Valentine, Nebraska street sign.JPG, Street signs in a small town, with house numbers
History of address numbering in US
Many cities and civic groups have made efforts to improve street name and numbering schemes, such as Boston in 1879, Chicago in 1895, and Nashville in 1940 among others.
The street grid system of New York City, with its numbered streets and avenues, is attributed to the
Commissioners' Plan of 1811
The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 was the original design for the streets of Manhattan above Houston Street and below 155th Street, which put in place the rectangular grid plan of streets and lots that has defined Manhattan on its march uptown u ...
. In Chicago, Edward P. Brennan worked in his spare time over 8 years to create a proposal to increase the efficiencies of the street name and addressing system, which was largely approved in 1909. In
Hollywood, Florida
Hollywood is a city in southern Broward County, Florida, United States, located between Fort Lauderdale and Miami. As of July 1, 2019, Hollywood had a population of 154,817. Founded in 1925, the city grew rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s, and is now ...
, Benjamin Israel worked for two and a half years to change three street names in the historic black district of Liberia from those that listed the names of Confederate soldiers in the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
-
Lee Street,
Forrest Street, and
Hood Street - to the names of Liberty Street, Freedom Street, and Hope Street. A local business owner had to supply the $20,000 funding to implement the change. There are places in
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...
which did not have named streets or addresses until at least 2013. After Verizon was caught inflating prices in 2002, Verizon reached an agreement with the state to supply $15 million to create at least 450,000 new street addresses.
See also
*
Geocode
A geocode is a code that represents a geographic entity (location or object). It is a unique identifier of the entity, to distinguish it from others in a finite set of geographic entities. In general the ''geocode'' is a human-readable and ...
*
Human geography
Human geography or anthropogeography is the branch of geography that studies spatial relationships between human communities, cultures, economies, and their interactions with the environment. It analyzes spatial interdependencies between social i ...
*
Slum
A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily inh ...
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
*
{{Authority control
Address (geography)
Housing