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You don't have to resort to countries with nomadic tribes. House numbering logic wildly differs between countries. In Tokyo, houses are numbered in the order i

• chrisseaton 8y ago
  What are you referring to for UK house numbers? They’re just sequential by location on the road in most cases.
• laumars 8y ago
  > House numbering logic wildly differs between countries. In Tokyo, houses are numbered in the order in which they are constructed. Isn't that the case for most countries? > I would expect a moved house therefore to keep its number. Do you have any reason for this expectation? I ask because your comment here sounds very speculative judging by the way it has been written. > London (or even the UK as a whole?) also has a rather random assignment of house numbers even though the natives will claim its completely logical. It's only random where houses haven't been built sequentially down the road. Much like the Tokyo example you gave. In any case, you're addressing the point about house numbers where as I was discussing postal codes. The two differ. House numbers are an exact designation for your property; be it a house, flat, or even mobile home on a plot of land. Post codes (zip codes, etc) are a region of land which would typically serve a cluster of homes. While you code move a property and decide to keep the same house name (though it would be massively confusing if you kept the same house number if you moved it to another street - so I suspect some authority or other would step in and say you cannot do that), you cannot keep the same post code. To use a comparison, it's a bit like moving your house out of London and into Tokyo but still putting London, England on your addresses and expecting post to get delivered to the right place. While you can move your house, you cannot move London nor England with it. And the same is true for postal / zip codes - in fact more so because you can in theory put garbage down as your address just so long as you get the house number/name and the post code right.
  • Tor3 8y ago
    >> House numbering logic wildly differs between countries. In Tokyo, houses are numbered in the order in which they are constructed. >Isn't that the case for most countries? I don't think so.. as far as I can (subjectively) tell, it's more common to set up a logical system. Another poster mentioned the Finnish system, where the number reflects the physical distance from the start of the road (123 = 1230 meters). Another common scheme is to use even numbers on one side of the road, and odd numbers on the other side, and numbering the houses sequentially, leaving gaps for not-yet built houses. In my street, for example, there's a large gap in the numbering because the next building is nearly a hundred meters away. On the occasional 'two buildings squeezed into one spot' just add A and B (and C and so on) as needed. And around here the numbering always start from the most southern part of the road or street (and if you ask "what about roads going exactly east-west", then a) I don't know, and b) It's really hard to find a roading that goes exactly east-west. I suspect, however, that there's a system for that as well - "if in doubt, start from east" or something).
    • laumars 8y ago
      > Another common scheme is to use even numbers on one side of the road, and odd numbers on the other side, and numbering the houses sequentially, leaving gaps for not-yet built houses. In my street, for example, there's a large gap in the numbering because the next building is nearly a hundred meters away. On the occasional 'two buildings squeezed into one spot' just add A and B (and C and so on) as needed. That's what we do in the UK as well (barring the gaps in the numbering) but for the most part it still ends up following the logic of "houses numbered in the order in which they are constructed" because you either need to know that there should be a gap (in which case the estimated build date is close enough to the rest of the street's build that you might as well consider it one lump development) or else you end up with letter suffixes or unordered numbering (which is what often ends up in the UK as roads get further developed decades after they were first built). Ultimately though, there is no law in the UK about how houses should be numbered so as much as there are conventions, it's up to the housing development to apply them. However might differ in other countries which might have stricter legislation about naming houses? Regarding the south->north scheme, I'd be interested to know what the streets are like in places that follow that convention. In the UK our roads are like a big bowl of spaghetti with even new builds wiggling around and even looping back on themselves (the road I live on is crescent-shaped). But where you have straighter roads, I could imagine a numbering scheme based on the direction of the road might work pretty well.