Why are houses numbered odd on one side of the street and even on the other?

Question

Where and when did the practice start? Is there anywhere in the world which has a different system?

Answer 1

Houses numbered even on one side and odd on the other follows the European scheme (odd numbers on one side, even on the other). The need to identify buildings arose with the growth of cities in Europe and China in the 18th century. The addresses contained an indication of the street where the house was located, along with some additional general directions.

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. House numbering schemes vary by place, and in many cases even within cities. In some, usually remote, areas of the world, houses are not numbered at all, instead simply being named.

**Europe - In Europe the most common house numbering 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, etc.
**Australia - In Australia, most addresses follow the European scheme (odd numbers on one side, even on the other).

Some other parts of the world has a different numbering system.
**North America - In much of North America, buildings are not numbered according to a simple sequence but rather according to distance from a given baseline.
**In cities with a grid pattern of streets, addresses often increase by 100 for each cross street. Addresses may also correlate with a street-numbering system. Thus, in Cleveland, Ohio, a building with the address 900 Euclid Avenue would be at the corner of Euclid Avenue and 9th Street.
**In San Francisco, parallel streets will sometimes be numbered in opposite directions. As an example, Broderick Street numbers ascend from south to north, while Masonic Avenue, just three blocks away, ascends from north to south.
**Along the Overseas Highway in the Florida Keys, house numbers indicate their distance from Mile Marker 0 in Key West. The mileage is found by dropping the last three digits in the address (for example, 77220 Overseas Highway is 77.2 miles from Mile Marker 0).
**Buildings in many rural areas in the United States used to lack these kind of addresses. Instead, an old rural address might have been simply "Rural route 3, Box 15." However, the adoption of 9-1-1 emergency systems has required the adoption of street names and house numbers in rural areas.
**Carmel-by-the-Sea, California lacks any house numbering whatsoever. Houses are referred to, instead, as (for example) "Junipero 3 SW of 10th", meaning "The third house on the west side of Junipero south of 10th."

**Some localities, such as the Borough of Queens in New York City, Washington, D.C, Pennsylvania Avenue uses the Block numbers system whoch assigns numbers based on distance rather than strictly sequentially.

** Asia - Japan and Korea use a system where the city is divided into small sections each with its own numeric code. The houses within that zone are then labelled based on the order in which they were constructed. This system is comparable to the 'sestriere,' or district, system of Venice.
**In England, numbering all plots on one side of a street consecutively, continuing clockwise back down on the opposite side of the street still exists, for example in cul de sacs, streets with buildings only on one side and in many Welsh villages. For instance, 10 Downing Street, the official home of the First Lord of the Treasury, is next door to 11 Downing Street, the home of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
**In Venice, Italy houses are numbered by district, resulting in just six series for the entire city; in Florence houses are given black numbers and businesses red numbers, resulting in just two series.
**In Prague and other Czech cities, two numbering systems are used concurrently. Buildings display both a číslo popisné (descriptive number) in red and a číslo orientační (orientation number) in blue. The red number is unique to the building in its section of town and may not be concurrent with addresses of nearby buildings. The blue number is a simple sequential number, similar to the house numbers used in other European cities.
**In Sweden, there is also a system (fastighetsbeteckningar) numbering farms and thereby also the houses on them. The numbering is done per village. When a farm is split, either composited numbers (like 2:1 and 2:2) are made to be able differ the farms, or a completely new number, previously unused, can be given to one or both of the farms.♥

Answer 2

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Answer 3

Venice (Venezia) actually needs no release, see how to get there with hotelbye . This city is a huge fabled destination for centuries. Just the name Venice is enough to conjure up a host of images, actually for many who have not even collection foot in Italy. From gondoliers in striped tops to the Rialto and the Bridge of Sighs, masked balls, wonderful barges, courtesans in gondolas and crumbling palaces facing streets made of water Venice is a fantastic city. After the sole bridge throughout the Grand Canal, Rialto Bridge marks the spot of the island's first settlement, named Rivus Altus and has become one of many lots of place that Venice must offer.

Answer 4

Prague is among the towns worth-visit and to do that you can start preparing your vacation with hotelbye . Beginning with the charming region around the Prague Castle or the Strahov monastery with its outstanding selection and finish with …the entire marvelous city, Prague is just incredible. In Prague you can even visit the little house wherever Franz Kafka labored or the attractive Prague Castle gardens from where you are able to have a unique see of the city with its picturesque red roofs. In that town you will never get bored. In the event that you will go during the spring you may find the spring trees in blossom; in summer time you will see long dusks; fall will provide you with vibrant leaves and specific light and in the wintertime you will relish the whole town included with innocent white snow.

Answer 5

Long time ago - it is so you can tell which side of the street you 'should' be looking at for the address you want.

Streets in the 1800's did not always follow this rule - the 1880 house of mine is 1208, directly across is an 03, and beside me is 05.. 12 is across from that. No rule at all in the numbering

Answer 6

Maybe it makes it easier to tell which side of the street a house is on.

Answer 7

Just like you have one left hand and one right hand, the left hand is on one side and the right hand is on the other, it's called a system, and makes life a lot easier

Answer 8

I guess just because it's easier to find the place you want that way. My guess is that it started here in the US, particularly after WWII when planned subdivisions started to be built.

Answer 9

So you keep focusing on one side of the road.

Answer 10

because its easy, its not known when it started, maybe god did it, who knows and who cares, u should never touch something that works prefectly