(no subject)

[arisha]

Guys, the South American address systems I have encountered so far totally blow ours out of the water. From here:

Feeling a little bewildered by Quito's street-address system? ... Introduced in 1998, the capital's newer street-numbering system is prefixed by one of the following letters: N, indicating that the street is situated north (norte) of Calle Rocafuerte in Old Town; S, meaning south (sur) of Old Town; or E, indicating east (este) and OE, meaning west (oeste), depending on which side of 10 de Agosto the street is located. A hyphenated number follows, and then the name of the nearest cross-street or avenue. The first of these hyphenated numbers is actually the building number, while the second number indicates the number of meters the house or building is from the cross-street. For example, González Suárez N27-142 and 12 de Octubre. The building would be found on González Suárez street, north of Calle Rocafuerte. The building number is "27," and it is roughly 142m (466 ft.) from Avenida 12 de Octubre.

Neat!

I also like how in Lima, every block of every street is numbered, and the address of every building on that street will start with the same number. Like if your house is on block two of Arequipa, your address will start with "2." Seriously, what is up with our willy-nilly way of doing things?

Comments

[athena-crikey.livejournal.com]

Sounds a lot like Japan. Good times. Thank god for Google Maps

I also like how in Lima, every block of every street is numbered, and the address of every building on that street will start with the same number.

...Which is the way it works here... *is confused*

[arisha.livejournal.com]

Wut? If that's true, I have never ever noticed it. I mean, it even says on the street signs what number block you're on so you know how much farther you have to go to get to the building you want.

[athena-crikey.livejournal.com]

Yep, we've got that too.

All blocks have a X00(0) number; it is on the street signs (Fort St. 200, for eg), but the block number is quite a bit smaller than the street name so you probably wouldn't notice if you weren't looking for it. All the houses in the 200 block of Fort street will be 2XX, with the evens on one side and the odds on the other. All blocks are 100 long, even if there are only say 20 houses, which is why you can get a big jump between numbers sometimes; they have to leave room in case more houses are built.

late reply is late

[arisha.livejournal.com]

So I told Mom you said this, and her reply was "Yeah?," as if I was an idiot for never noticing.

Then I told Phil you said this, and his reply was "What? Really??," because he had never noticed either.

I vote Lima's system is better because a total geographic n00b like me actually realized it was there!! xD

[frauleinfrog.livejournal.com]

That actually sounds kind of confusing to me, since you would have to know which streets they're using before you can find anywhere? But that may just be me and my bad relationship with the cardinal directions. Also, maybe this is why I find Japanese addresses totally useless...

And like Athena said, it's not totally willy-nilly!

late reply is late

[arisha.livejournal.com]

maybe this is why I find Japanese addresses totally useless...

lol, I'm pretty sure EVERYONE finds Japanese addresses totally useless. xD

Actually, I think I was super spoiled in that my first really international destination was Japan. All the web sites for all the attractions you'd want to visit have maps and detailed instructions on how to get there. When I started looking up stuff for Lima and could only ever find the street addresses, I was really really frustrated!! Dx

'sall good. ^^

[frauleinfrog.livejournal.com]

Even the Japanese! I figure there's a reason that every car comes GPS equiped.

This is true, for a certain definition of "detailed" and "map". :p Better than just finding addresses, though! ^^