Combining a few replies into one...
Benjamin Reed wrote:
My dad's house is in the county in Wisconsin and it uses
coordinates, even.
The format is W ### S #### ______ Drive.
That's pretty much all of Utah (although the creation of more
curvilinear suburban streets in recent decades messes it up somewhat).
Typically Main St runs N-S and Center St runs E-W, and everything is
measured from those, so 345 E 100 N, etc..
Abigail wrote:
I often get the impression such maps know the house numbers at the
ends, and
at key intersections, and the other numbers are found by
interpolation.
That's pretty much exactly it... although, at least in the US, it's
not the actual house numbers that are known, just the range. There is
no central repository of addresses, as such. The database would look
something like
street_name left_side_start right_side_start left_side_end
right_side_end
21ST AVE 3100 3101 3198 3199
Well, in proper geocoding tools[1], the street components are broken
into smaller components. In Portland, we have quite short blocks, so
even though the range on a street segment may run from 3100-3199, the
last house on the block may only be 3140.
Peter da Silva wrote:
My brother once tried to explain the address numbering system in
Japan to me, when he was living in Tokyo. I'm not sure if I ever
understood it.
Most of Japan isn't much different than anywhere in the US or Europe
(IIRC). Except Tokyo. Most streets in Tokyo don't have names.
Addresses are just nested geographies. So an address like "1-2-3
Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-Ku, Tokyo" means: In Tokyo, in the Shinjuku
Ward, in the Nishi(West)-Shinjuku section, in the 1st Chome
(district), on the second block, the 3rd building.
Of course, where the building is in the Chome is somewhat arbitrary,
but adjacent numbers are usually physically adjacent. The ordering of
the buildings on the block, however, is numbered by the order in which
the buildings were built – so practically speaking, you have to walk
around the block until you find the building - and sometimes Chomes
have their own names not just a number, but the nested hierarchy still
works.
Suffice it say, pretty much every taxi in Tokyo has very detailed maps
in their GPS unit.
Geez, when did I become such an addressing nerd...
d.
[1] Such as this one: http://github.com/darrell/tiger_geocoder :)
