street numbers

[VV o n g B a]

i came across something that seems interesting.

In Japan, the houses are usually numbered by neighborhood, not by street. Assume a town called Kazetani with multiple neighborhoods; assume one neighborhood is called Taneda and takes up four or five square blocks with several streets. If you live in that neighborhood, your address might be 57 Taneda. Your next door neighbor could be 32 Taneda, and 58 Taneda could be three streets over.

You can't find your way to a specific person's house without a map! Detailed maps are published of every city showing the neighborhoods and individually numbered houses. (I spent 2 years there and eventually got pretty good with the maps.)

Somebody eventually told me that the houses were numbered in the order they were built. I'm not sure whether that person was pulling my leg or not.

Question: Is it any less logical to number houses in a tract in the order they were built, than to number them consecutively along a single street?
can anyone confirm/deny that houses are actually numbered by build order in japan? is this true in other asian nations?

also, whether it makes logical sense might depend on how japanese society is organized. build order numbering gives ppl a sense of how old the house might be. in a less mobile society it might once have also connoted a family's "seniority" in the neighborhood.

or i could be talking out of my ass.

[kimpossible]

While I can't confirm or deny that some neighborhoods might be numbered that way in Japan the residential layouts are different in suburban areas. I've never really been to an actual 'rural' part of Japan. Most addresses go by roads, districts and a lot of other shit I forgot. Housing example, my uncle lives in a college town a couple of hours outside Tokyo. The homes are much more Western suburban sized out there and have yards/driveways.

Taipei uses roads, lanes, neighborhoods and something else I'm forgetting. HK drops a lot of numbers out on floor levels in buildings. I don't know if this carries over to street numbers. One thing to keep in mind -- if this is about Tokyo, it's been rebuilt once or twice. Lately, I've been suffering from CRS (can't remember shit) depending on how often my child gets up at night and current caffeine level.

I dunno. Often times apartments are so much more expensive based on location... eh, screw it. My brain is mush.

[popculturepooka]

^ That's totally true. The first time I came to Japan it confused the hell out of me, I literally spent all day looking for a house number that was just 2 blocks away...because the numbers are all fucked up.

The buildings are numbered by when they were built, not by proximity to each other. So building 36 could be next to building 238.

Y'know how taxi drivers in America generally know where they are going (becuase they know the city well)? Yeah....doesn't happen in Japan. You better have a map ready to hand to them and show them where you want to go because even the vet taxi drivers don't know where some of these buildings are.

Street names? Most neighborhood streets don't have them. So you can't even use those to guide you in the general direction.

It's a mess.

[VV o n g B a]

no street names? hahaha thats nuts. do u feel think that it was purposeful or is the chaotic state just set by precedence over commonsense?

i was also thinking that the chaoticness might have been a way to keep outsiders out b/c of the disincentive of actually having to look for the place. but if vet taxi drivers can't even find stuff thats seems too extreme.

[kimpossible]

Why does my spidey sense say that page 3 of this will take a turn towards flaming?

[Craig]

When I was in 2nd year Japanese class at the university, they mentioned something about the numbering system for residential addresses. However, that was so long ago that I've forgotten. At one of my old work sites (in the US) they numbered the buildings by when they were built and it was very annoying to say the least.

[lethal]

is this true in other asian nations?

It is not like this in Vietnam.

[SunWuKong]

hmm. don't really know how Hong Kong numbers its addresses. postal workers know their neighbourhoods down to the names of the buildings, and you usually just tell taxi drivers to go to an intersection (or i do anyway). i don't think people pay much attention to the street numbers unless they're trying to mail something. and even then, it'll probably get to its destination if you know the name of the building it needs to go to, unless the address is actually a house (yes, single family homes do exist in HK).

[kimpossible]

no street names? hahaha thats nuts.

At least some streets have names. You'll have something like

_______ dori
_______ chome
_______ machi
prefecture
city
zip

I think. You write it a little more compressed on an envelope so it doesn't have to be so many lines but it's not so complicated or weird that you need a decoder ring. I was gonna add that a lot of housing, at least in metropolis, isn't located directly on a roadway.

[popculturepooka]

no street names? hahaha thats nuts. do u feel think that it was purposeful or is the chaotic state just set by precedence over commonsense?

i was also thinking that the chaoticness might have been a way to keep outsiders out b/c of the disincentive of actually having to look for the place. but if vet taxi drivers can't even find stuff thats seems too extreme.

Y'know, I'm thinking that it made sense to them at the time. They just didn't realize that it would expand like it did.
I mean, really, who would've predicted that the Greater Tokyo Area would've gotten so large?

As to you're second point, you may have something there. Especially if the villages/towns/cities were built after General MacArthur came and the Japanese started fearing foreigners would try to come in Japan.

Kim is also right. There are street names for some areas, but most of the residential areas I've been to had no street names.

Now, main streets in the center of Tokyo? That's different, those streets have names.

And it's funny (but not "haha" funny, more like frustrated funny) how houses that on/besides roads, are one way - but in no specific direction. Two cars coming at each other, from opposite directions, on the same street? One has to back out all the way out....

[BeTheReds]

Yes, the way things are numbered is true. This is why oftentimes when you order pizza or anything, you can't simply give your address to the delivery people you have to tell them how to get to your house.

When I lived there, my place was addressed as such

City - Saitama City
Ku (ward) - Nishi-Ku
General area - Mihashi
Chome (block?) - 5th Chome
Apartment name - XXXX
Building number - 19
Apt# - XXX

In my case it was easy to find because there was only one apartment by that name in 5th chome.


Anyway, there is a movement to name the streets and number everything accordingly, and some larger streets actually have names, but as far as addressing goes, that has yet to change.

Because of the inneficiency, you need post offices in more locations simply because one central post office simply can't have enough intimate knowledge of everything in the area.

And if you ever need to ask a Japanese for directions, you get a lot of visual cues "Pass the McDonalds, then walk straight till you see the big red mailbox with the graphiti on it, then there is an old man who raises chickens, turn left at his house, then...", or just.. "OH, let me take you there, I am going that way anyway."

I also found that Japanese in the US can't follow simple directions like, "Turn left on main street, then right on crenshaw blvd." They want "Pass the house with the blue shutters and turn right at the intersection with the 3 big trees."

If I ran Japan, I'd reorganize the whole damn thing.


In Korea, a lot of things are organized the same way simply because of their origins in the colonial era, but nowthings are changing and in newer towns, steets have names and stuff.