2oo years after the rest of the world, Costa Rica finally decided it was time to use street numbers for addresses.

Up till today a typical address in Costa Rica would like like this:

• From the church 200 meters west, 100 meters north. White house, with a black gate, on the right side of the road

• From the old furniture shop 250 meters east, make a right on the mango tree and 300 meters south

These are just examples of the most benevolent form of address confusion. Of notice are 2 particular elements, who in the world (if not an Eagle Scout) can tell where north, south, etc are in any random point of a city… are we expected to carry around a compass, or determine this from the sun? The second one is when addresses are given in reference to landmarks. If the furniture store is no longer there (it´s someone´s house) how could i ever know that; and a mango tree, if I am from Kentucky, no way I could tell which one it is.

Here is La Nacion´s (nacion.com) explanation of how the new system will work:

Basically addresses will be composed of a Street and Avenue number, plus the a 3rd value which represents the distance form the intersection of the two.

Signs are being propped up all along San Jose right now. The first 2 towns that have completed the mission are those of Moravia and Coronado. with over 3000 posts installed in their corners. The plan is that by next year, all of San Jose will be using this new and more universally understood system.

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Filed under: Costa Rica News on July 31st, 2007