House numbering

The term describes the number of any building (residential or commercial) with a mailbox, or even a vacant lot.

[citation needed] 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".

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.

[5][6] Due to the gradual development of house numbering and street addressing schemes, reform efforts occur periodically.

[9] An exception may occur where the road forms part of the boundary between different council areas or cities.

[11] Walcha, in the New England district of northern New South Wales, has a unique numbering system which differs from the rest of the state.

Similarly, in north–south running streets have an 'N' or 'S' appended to the house number signifying that the property lies north (or south) of the Oxley Highway.

Ballarat Central, Victoria, uses the US system of increasing house numbers by 100 after a major cross street.

The most common street address formats in Vietnam are: Another scheme is based on residential areas called cư xá.

)[15] The Finnish numbering system incorporates solutions to the problems which arose with mass urbanization and increase in building density.

With new, infill 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.

In many new planned neighborhoods of Portugal houses and other buildings are identified by a lote (plot) number without reference to their street.

[17] In 2022, starting to type "0," into the Royal Mail postcode search [18] revealed Middlesbrough had four listed properties, whilst Birmingham, Ellesmere Port, Lincoln and London have one each.

Along oldest streets, numbering is usually clockwise and consecutive: for example in Pall Mall, some new towns, and in many villages in Wales.

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.

In some villages, a single numbering system covers the entire settlement, especially in rural areas without formal street names.

[20] Contemporary architecture and modern house building techniques see alternatively acrylic, aluminium, or glass, ceramic, brass, slate, or stone used.

Similarly, small villages in rural areas may also occasionally use a single progressive series for all house numbers.

The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality introduced new house numbering and street signs in 2007 by two official designers.

[22] In Central and Eastern Europe, with some exceptions, houses are typically numbered in the European style.

Typically, this number begins with zero or with the letter "E", or has different colour, or contains words like nouzová stavba ("makeshift structure") or chata ("weekend house"), etc.

In the 1930–1950s in Brno, lower case letters were used for separate entrances of modern block houses perpendicular to the street.

In 1884, land registration books were introduced and they used the old (conscription) numbers as a permanent and stable identifier of buildings.

[24] In Russia 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.

Soviet era housing districts (microdistricts) often have a complicated network of access lanes thought too small to merit their own names.

In some cities, especially hosting large scientific or military research centers in Soviet times, 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.

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.

[26] 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.

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.