Street suffix explained

A street suffix is the part of a street or road name that describes what type of road it is. Examples include "street", "avenue", "lane", "highway", and "drive". As they are commonly repeated between roads, they are often abbreviated; for example, "St." instead of "Street". The way street suffixes are used varies around the world.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, some councils maintain lists of locally approved suffixes for new roads.

Example

For example, Haringey Council in London provides this guidance:[1]

However other suffixes may be used elsewhere in the UK (for example "Terrace" and "Green" are common), and it is by no means unusual for a street to be called by a name alone, without any suffix. It is also common for different streets in the same immediate area to have the same name but to be distinguished by different suffixes. It is also common for a street to have more than one suffix (e.g. "Park Gardens" or "Meadow Road". In Wales it is common to use Welsh-language suffixes (which actually usually precede the name) such as Ffordd, Heol, Stryd, Cae.

Some of the limitations used by Haringey are not relevant elsewhere, for example "lane" is often used for a minor rural road between fields, perhaps with no houses, and "way" is sometimes used for minor residential roads.

Allowed

Disallowed (but common in other parts of the UK)

Regional variations

Mainland Europe

A few points of note on street suffixes in mainland Europe:

United States

Many local governments now require a street-name suffix to comply with emergency telephone rules intended to avoid spoken confusion, e.g. spoken Broadway could be misidentified as Broad Way. Notwithstanding this, some street names historically and linguistically do not carry a suffix, e.g. Broadway, Rampart, Embarcadero. This list below has examples of suffix forms that are primary street suffix names, common street suffixes or suffix abbreviations, recommended by the United States Postal Service.[2] Commonly used street abbreviations are within parentheses.

Australia

This list has examples of suffix forms suitable for use in Australia with clear connotations of the class and type of road, recommended by Standards Australia.[3]

Hong Kong

Hong Kong does not have regulations on the road and street names, but currently has some guidelines on a few suffices, namely Road, Street, Path and Lane.[5] There are about 50 English suffices recorded in the street list of Lands Department in 2023.

Usually each street in Hong Kong comes with an English name and a Chinese name. While English street names follow British convention, they usually occasionally show local and international influences. Some private housing developers name roads with French and Italian names. A handful of names have prefixes rather than suffices; for simplicity these are included with suffices in this section.

English and Chinese terms do not necessarily correspond one-to-one. See also List of streets and roads in Hong Kong.

Guideline

Suffices, including some prefixes

In order of frequency:

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Guidelines for street and building naming and numbering . Haringey Council . 2 July 2020.
  2. Web site: Street Suffix Abbreviations . USPS . 2 July 2020 . 2020.
  3. Book: Policies and Standards for Geographical Naming in Western Australia: Version 01:2017 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200719165043/https://www0.landgate.wa.gov.au/docvault.nsf/web/PS_LD/$file/Policies-and-Standards-for-Geographical-Naming-in-Western-Australia.pdf . 19 July 2020 . dead . Appendix 2A: Road types suitable for use in Australia . Midland, West Australia . Western Australian Land Information Authority . 102 . 19 July 2020 . The following table is an extract from Australian Standard AS/NZS 4819:2011 Appendix A 'Road Types – Australia'. Road types used in Western Australia shall be chosen from this list for open ended roads, cul-de-sacs or pedestrian only roads..
  4. Web site: Model Policy for the Selection of Road Names . Local Government Association of South Australia . April 2010 . 19 July 2020.
  5. Web site: DHC 17/2019 附件三 . Shatin District Council . zh.

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