House numbering
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. The term describes the number of any building 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 and francophone countries, the house number normally precedes the name of the street.
History
A house numbering scheme was present in Pont Notre-Dame 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 signs, 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 in the Austrian Empire were numbered in the same decade to aid the authorities in the conscription of the Jews.
Street numbering gained momentum in the mid-18th century, especially in Prussia, 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, London, Paris, and Vienna, 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
In Australia and New Zealand, the current standard 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 and even numbers when facing in the direction of increasing numbers reflecting already common practice. It first came into force in 2003 under AS/NZS 4819:2003 – Geographic Information – Rural & Urban Addressing. An exception may occur where the road forms part of the boundary between different council areas or cities. For example, Underwood Road in Rochedale South, part of which is divided between Logan City and the City of Brisbane.Where a block of land, such as No. 9, is divided into parts, the sequence might go 7, 9, 9A, 11, 13. Conversely, should blocks 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 and South Australia, 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 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 metres has been devised. Thus a farm from the start of the road, on the right-hand side would be numbered 230.
Walcha, in the New England district of northern New South Wales, has a unique numbering system which differs from the rest of the state. The town lies at the intersection of the Oxley Highway and Thunderbolts Way. All properties on east–west running streets have a 'W' or 'E' appended to the number signifying the property lies to the west of Thunderbolts Way. Similarly, in north–south running streets have an 'N' or 'S' appended to the house number signifying that the property lies north of the Oxley Highway.
Ballarat 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
In Japan, 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 used in Venice.South Korea formerly used a similar system, but in 2011 adopted a new address format based on street numbering, similar to Western countries. Large apartment complexes often share a single street address, but individual buildings within the complex are identified by internal building numbers, typically followed by the suffix dong, meaning "building" or "block". For example, "101동" refers to Building 101 within the complex. These identifiers are widely used for navigation and postal services, even though they are not part of the official street address.
Separately, dong also refers to a neighborhood or administrative district within a city, used in both legal and administrative contexts.
In Hong Kong, a former British colony, the 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. These roads or streets include Ferry Street, Connaught Road West, and Gloucester Road.
Most mainland Chinese 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 or nong, 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, 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. In rural areas, village or settlement name is used in house numbering, where numbering norms are not certain. A xiang indicates a branch from a main road; and a nong indicates a branch from a xiang. For many reasons such as new establishment of buildings or several apartments in a building, the zhi is used.
Southeast Asia
The most common street address formats in Vietnam are:- A number followed by the street name, for example "123 đường Lê Lợi". This is the most basic, most common format.
- A number with an alphabetic suffix: "123A đường Lê Lợi", "123B đường Lê Lợi", 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, the alley number is combined with the house number: for example, in "123/3 đường Lê Lợi", 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 "123/3E đường Lê Lợi" or "123/3/5B đường Lê Lợi". An extreme example would be "7/14/12/3/23a đường 182", which is located on 3rd alley off 12th alley off 14th alley off 7th alley off 182nd street.
West Asia
Generally in Iran and especially in the capital Tehran 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 14−1Northern and Western Europe
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. 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.. Where buildings are later combined, one of the original numbers may be used, the numbers may be combined, or the numbers may be used as a given range. 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 ; 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, 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.