Street suffix

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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.

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

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.

• Road for any thoroughfare
• Street for any thoroughfare
• Way for major roads
• Avenue for residential roads, typically tree-lined
• Drive for residential roads
• Lane for residential roads
• Grove for residential roads, usually a cul-de-sac^{[dubious – discuss]}
• Gardens subject to there being no confusion with any local open space
• Place subject to there being no confusion with any local open space
• Circus for a Circus or for a large roundabout
• Crescent for a crescent-shaped road
• Bypass for a dual carriageway or motorway that bypasses a nearby village, city or town
• Close for a cul-de-sac only
• Square for a square only
• Hill for a hillside road only
• Mews provided it does not repeat the name of the road from which access is gained
• Vale for residential roads (only for exceptional circumstances)
• Rise/Row for residential roads (only for exceptional circumstances)
• Mead/Wharf for residential roads (only for exceptional circumstances)

• Brow, in Cumbria
• Brae, in Scotland
• Shute, in Isle of Wight

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

• In some languages the "street suffix" precedes the name and is thus a "street prefix" (rue Pasteur)
• In some languages the street suffix is not a separate word but is included in the same word as the rest of the name (Marktstrasse). This can sometimes be confusing to the uninitiated, especially if the main part of the name has more than one word, e.g. Frederik Hendriklaan
• In some countries, occasionally a phrase is used instead of a suffix, e.g. Auf dem Hügel for Hill Street
• In some bilingual countries, multiple-language suffixes might appear at the same time in one street name phrase, to avoid repeating the main name, e.g. in Belgium rue Van der Schrickstraat (instead of being double billed as rue Van der Schrick / Van der Schrickstraat)

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.

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 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.

• Road, a main road in a region or urban area
• Street, a primary or secondary road in a district, usually surrounding with buildings
• Path, a footpath or narrow road
• Lane, a passage or narrow road between buildings

In order of frequency: