Japanese addressing system • Hacker News Board

Re: Japanese addressing system

#11

Post by jen729w » Sun, Aug 11, 2019, 4:22 AM UTC

throw0101a wrote: post #3

Obligatory "Falsehoods programmers believe about addresses" * https://www.mjt.me.uk/posts/falsehoods-programmers-believe-a... * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5791489 (2013) * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8907301 (2015) * https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=mjt.me.uk

My UK-centric view of addresses caused me an unnecessary and unpleasant 3kms walk, backpack-laden, in high summer Sydney heat back in 2003.

Turns out “100 Some Road” can exist in multiple contiguous suburbs here in Australia. The numbering for the road re-starts at a suburb boundary! Who knew?

This means that, upon exiting a train station and seeing number 2, 4, 6... to your left, you can’t walk left and find the 100 you’re looking for. You might be in the wrong suburb, and your number 100 might in fact be to your right.

I remember that day like it was yesterday. 2nd December 2003. I’m an Australian now, but I had the good sense to move to Melbourne. ;-)

Re: Japanese addressing system

#12

Post by userbinator » Sun, Aug 11, 2019, 4:40 AM UTC

When written in Japanese characters, addresses start with the largest geographical entity and proceed to the most specific one. When written in Latin characters, addresses follow the convention used by most Western addresses and start with the smallest geographic entity (typically a house number) and proceed to the largest.

Big and little-endian, in other words.

Re: Japanese addressing system

#13

Post by colechristensen » Sun, Aug 11, 2019, 5:08 AM UTC

Only thirty years ago (I'm having trouble finding the exact date of switchover) rural addresses in Iowa were of the form

Box #123 RR 456 (RR for Rural Route)

City, IA 50000 (city of nearest post office)

The replacement started in the 1990s was called something like 911 address because nobody but the postman could easily navigate to your home unless they already knew. Country roads didn't have names.

Re: Japanese addressing system

#14

Post by techsupporter » Sun, Aug 11, 2019, 5:15 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #13

Only thirty years ago (I'm having trouble finding the exact date of switchover) rural addresses in Iowa were of the form Box #123 RR 456 (RR for Rural Route) City, IA 50000 (city of nearest post office) The replacement started in the 1990s was called something like 911 address because nobody but the postman could easily navigate to your home unless they already knew. Country roads didn't have names.

That's what they were called in Texas, too, "911 address." Before that, people who got mail delivery to their houses usually used some form of [lot number] [locally-known street or platted subdivision]. If you owned multiple lots, you used multiple numbers. My grandparents' address was something like "10-11-12 Rocking Ranch, Middleofnowhere TX 75333." After 911 addressing, it became the usual format but the street names were assigned by the county if you weren't in a city.

Then there were the people who didn't get mail delivery so all they had was a PO box. To this day, there are people who still only have a PO box as their "real address" and they have to go get a 911 address assigned from the Postmaster or their county when they renew their voter registration or state ID because the state decided a few years ago that PO boxes weren't real addresses for voting or having on a license. The address still doesn't work for mail delivery, it's just to fulfill a location rule.

Re: Japanese addressing system

#15

Post by peteretep » Sun, Aug 11, 2019, 5:17 AM UTC

freddie_mercury wrote: post #9

I think lots of places don't have the numbering system that Americans take for granted. In Vietnam my address is something like 422/35/11 Dien Bien Phu, Ward 17, Binh Thanh district, Ho Chi Minh City. The number means "go to the building #422 on the main road and turn down the unnamed road you see there; drive until you see the house numbered 35 and turn down the unnamed road THERE; then proceed to number 11." Make s…

> don't have the numbering system that Americans take for granted

I’ll take a second to point out that American addresses are bizarre to many Europeans, for the same reason that your dates are; the room number or suite number is written _after_ the street number.

Random addendum: in the UK, a postcode plus a small number will accurately identify most addresses, and when entering an address online you’ll be asked for a postcode and then prompted to choose from about 20 residences or businesses that that could be

Re: Japanese addressing system

#16

Post by peteretep » Sun, Aug 11, 2019, 5:24 AM UTC

If I had the time and knowledge, I’d add a whole bunch more examples and graphics to this page

Re: Japanese addressing system

#17

Post by enlyth » Sun, Aug 11, 2019, 5:24 AM UTC

I moved to the UK more than five years ago and cannot get enough of this algorithmic postcode system here. It narrows down almost to the house on some occasions, while postcodes in my home country are basically "within 100 miles".

Re: Japanese addressing system

#18

Post by enlyth » Sun, Aug 11, 2019, 5:26 AM UTC

freddie_mercury wrote: post #9

I think lots of places don't have the numbering system that Americans take for granted. In Vietnam my address is something like 422/35/11 Dien Bien Phu, Ward 17, Binh Thanh district, Ho Chi Minh City. The number means "go to the building #422 on the main road and turn down the unnamed road you see there; drive until you see the house numbered 35 and turn down the unnamed road THERE; then proceed to number 11." Make s…

That's so interesting, thanks for sharing.

Re: Japanese addressing system

#19

Post by needle0 » Sun, Aug 11, 2019, 5:35 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #12

When written in Japanese characters, addresses start with the largest geographical entity and proceed to the most specific one. When written in Latin characters, addresses follow the convention used by most Western addresses and start with the smallest geographic entity (typically a house number) and proceed to the largest. Big and little-endian, in other words.

I don't quite get why the latter became widespread in the west, though - we read text from top to bottom, we pinpoint addresses by drilling going from the largest geographical entries down to the smallest, why make them go reverse against each other?

Re: Japanese addressing system

#20

Post by kbouck » Sun, Aug 11, 2019, 5:47 AM UTC

On a trip to Tokyo we had challenges locating a restaurant based on the address. Despite handing the address to the taxi driver, we got to the block, but the driver couldn't locate the restaurant. He had to call the restaurant to have someone come outside and wave us in.

Left us wondering how that addressing system works.

From the article i'm guessing this would have been a "banchi" block, where numbers were assigned in order of registration.