# Door Numbering



## null (Dec 11, 2002)

*Post pics and rules of Door Numbering in your country.* :cheers:

*China*

*Urban*










*above: road name

below: the number (either odd or even)*

*Rural*










*left: place name
upper right: sub place name
lower right: the number *


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## PedroGabriel (Feb 5, 2007)

in here it is not standardized, each person or building constructor decides how the numbering will look like. can be the number in copper... yellow metal or an azulejo, painted in white and blue colors.


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## null (Dec 11, 2002)

It's not standardized in China either?

But what's the basic structure?


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## RawLee (Jul 9, 2007)

Basically,it looks like this:

District-region of district(basically useless info)
name of street
numbers from this intersection until the next

These are found only at intersections.









(szoltrend.hu)

The actual numbers of building can be found on themselves,and all look the way the owner(s) want.


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## aaabbbccc (Mar 8, 2009)

this is interesting !! I wonder how the number system in other countries work 
in USA 
in one side it is numbers ending with odd interger 
other side numbers ending with even interger


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## PedroGabriel (Feb 5, 2007)

aaabbbccc said:


> this is interesting !! I wonder how the number system in other countries work
> in USA
> in one side it is numbers ending with odd interger
> other side numbers ending with even interger


here in Portugal is the same



null said:


> It's not standardized in China either?
> 
> But what's the basic structure?











but in the markets they dont sell like this, but they sall all the 10 numbers seperate, so you only buy the numbers you need, and put them in front of the house.

the other style is just a number made in metal...


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## AltinD (Jul 15, 2004)

Here in Dubai is white number over a blue square tag, but no one knows or cares about them yet. :nuts:

In Austria/Vienna was smth like "1, Kartnerstrasse 12" where the first number was the distric number (Vienna has 23 in the city proper), followed by the street name and the building number.

In Tirana/Albania after the fall of communism ... :runaway:


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## FREKI (Sep 27, 2005)

In Denmark the numbers starts from the end of the city that is closest to the city center

You then have even numbers on one side and uneven on the other..

There are no special signs needed, you are free to pick any font you like..

In apartment buildings the entire stairway has a single number and you then add a floor count and the position of the door ( usually left or right ) - apartment buildings often have multiple stairs and numbers..

The way of writing the numbers keep the numbers low and only the longest streets goes above 100...


In terms of adresse you write it like this:


John Doe
Beerstreet 42 3tv
DK-2200 Copenhagen N

42 being the street number and 3 the floor and tv ( til venstre ) meaning to the left..

If there are more than 4 doors/apartments on a floor, you use ABCD instead..


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## l33t-boy (Apr 24, 2009)




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## Chrissib (Feb 9, 2008)

These are the usual door numbers in German cities, especially at houses built around 1900. They're widely used in Germany, but there's individual designs, too.


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

Street name and house number signs were actually invented in Paris, and generalized throughout the city as early as the 18th century. Before that, streets had no street name signs, as in the rest of the world, and buildings had no numbers, so people usually used swinging signboards hung outside the buildings to locate places. For example, if a store had a signboard outside with three crowns on it, people would use it to locate places around it. The street where this store was located could be called "the street of the three crowns", and you could also indicate an address with respect to this sign "e.g. two streets after St Martin church, turn left, and then it's the building just next to the three crown sign".

In other cases, it could be even more complicated. For example in this rental ad published in a London newspaper in the end of the 18th century (London adopted house numbering later than Paris): "To be lett, Newbury House, in St Jame's Park, next door but one to Lady Oxford's, having two balls at the gate, and iron nails before the door." Another example, the address on a letter posted in Paris in 1657: "A Mademoiselle Louison, demeurant chez Alizon, justement au cinquième étage près du cabaret de la cage dans une chambre à deux chassis proche Saint-Pierre des Assis." (Translation: "To Mrs Louison, c/o Alizon, right on the sixth floor near the inn of the cage [there was probably a cage on the signboard], in a room with two window frames, near St Pierre des Assis [church].")

This was of course a very complicated system. That's why in 1728 René Hérault, Lieutenant General of Police of Paris (i.e. the head of the Paris Police), ordered that street name signs be posted at the corner of all the streets in Paris. It was the first time in the world, as far as I know, that street name signs were created. This was generalized by René Hérault's decree of July 30, 1729, which demanded that all owners with houses at the beginning and end of the streets put stone tablets engraved with the street names on the exterior walls of their houses. The stone tablets were sealed within the facades.

Some of these early street signs still exist today. They look quite different from the current Paris street signs. They contain not only the name of the street but also the number of the 18th century district within which the street was located. Note that at the time the letters were painted black and were much more visible than in the three examples below where the paint has disappeared.




























At the time of the French Revolution, the name of saints were erased from the Paris street names. For example here the Rue Neuve St Médéric ("St Médéric New Street"), you can see that the "St" was erased:









It was even worse when the street contained the name of a king. Here the Rue St Louis ("St Louis Street") was totally erased (St Louis was a famous Medieval French king):









After the Revolution, the names of saints were added again. Here in the Rue des Fossés St Jacques ("Street of St James Moats") you can see the "St" was erased at the time of the Revolution and added again after the Revolution:









Keep in mind that all the numbers on these street signs are not house numbers but the numbers of the 18th century Paris districts within which the streets were located.

It is only in 1844 that the world famous blue-white Paris street signs were finally adopted, with a standardized format for the entire city contrary to the old street signs which were less standardized as you could see in the picture above. The 1844 street signs bear the number of the Paris arrondissement within which the street is located on top of the sign. The 1844 street signs have remained unchanged until today:









Sometimes you can see a 1844 (i.e. current) street sign next to a pre-19th century street sign. In some cases the street name is still the same:









In other cases the street name has changed over time:









Now coming to house numbering proper, Paris was again a pioneer in house numbering. The first attempt to number buildings was made on the Notre Dame bridge in 1512 (buildings were built over bridges at the time), which I believe is the oldest house numbering scheme in the world. In the 18th century René Hérault, whom I talked about above, tried to generalize house numbering throughout the city but it failed due to opposition from the aristocracy whose members refused to have the front gates of their imposing mansions "disfigured" by number plaques, and who also argued that numbering aristocratic mansions and the dwellings of lower class people alike was a repulsive egalitarian measure which infringed on the status of the privileged classes. The mansions of aristocrats were known as "hôtel" in French, so for instance the mansion of Lord Matignon was known as the "Hôtel de Matignon". The name of a mansion was usually written above its street gate, so the aristocrats saw no need to have numbers for their mansions, on top of rejecting the egalitarian aspect of numbering all houses alike.










It is only when the French Revolution abolished all the privileges that it was possible to number all the buildings in Paris. In 1805 Napoleon reformed house numbering and created the system that still exists today: odd numbers on the left side of the streets (left when standing in the middle of the street between number 1 and 2), even numbers on the right side. For streets which are perpendicular to the Seine, the first numbers are closest to the Seine River. For streets which run parallel to the Seine, the first numbers are upstream and the most elevated numbers downstream. Each lot (each building) gets a number that is the number of the previous building + 2 (on the left side of the street: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, etc.; on the right side of the street: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, etc.). This is quite different from the US where numbers usually correspond to the distance from the beginning of the street in yards (which is why US streets can have very big house numbers with 4 or 5 digits contrary to what happens in France where a house number with 4 digits would need more than 2000 buildings in the street, which never happens).

In the 200 years since 1805, some lots have been divided and sold to different owners who built different buildings. Due to the system's rigidity, it wasn't possible to give the new buildings some new numbers. Instead the system of "bis, ter, quarter, etc." is used. For example take Rue Princesse. In 1805, at number 4 on Rue Princesse there was a building. This building (I'm making it up) was torn down in 1840, and the lot was divided in three and sold to three different owners who built three different buildings. The first building (closest to number 2) got number "4", the second building got number "4bis" and the third building (closest to number 6) got number "4ter". If two lots are united, then the new united lot gets the numbers from the two previous lots. For instance, if in 1945 they torn down the building at 12 Rue Princesse and the building at 14 Rue Princesse to build a larger building standing on both lots, then the new building's address is "12-14 Rue Princesse".

It is in 1847 (4 years after they adopted the blue-white Paris street signs) that they adopted the blue-white porcelain format for house numbers. This format (and its colors) is so popular that it has been adopted by many other cities in France and in the rest of the world (as shown by Chrissib in his German example).




























An example of "bis" number:









Some numbers do not respect the blue-white format and are much more stylish:


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