GUATEMALA CITY, GUATEMALA

Guatemala's first street nomenclature was devised in 1855 when the Conservative Government decreed the use of proper names, such as Calle del Calvario, Calle de los Olvidos, or Calle de la Merced. The system was descriptive and easy to remember, but rapid growth of the city led to its replacement by a numbering method first proposed by the engineer Raúl Aguilar Batres in 1877. Despite its Byzantine complexity, this system is still used today. Streets from north to south are called "Avenida" and those from east to west are called "Calle". Each address has three numbers—"1 Avenida 5-25" for example—to indicate the street number and the approximate distance, in meters, from the nearest cross street. The distance in meters (in this case "25"), is odd for houses on the north side of a street (or avenue) and even for those on the south. Each address is determined by the Municipality of Guatemala.

The zones of the city are also numbered. Using the center of the city as a starting point, numbers increase starting from the north then spiraling outwards, using main roads or geographic divisions as boundaries... more