In Search Of Utopia: Costa Rican Addresses

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May 22, 2006

Costa Rican Addresses

Those of us who live in Costa Rica, learn to deal with Costa Rican addresses. When I first came here 12 years ago, I found it incredible that Costa Rica does not have numeric street adresses. To give you an example, this is my home address:

500 meters West of the Municipality of San Pablo
50 Meters North
House Number 5, with Brown Fence
San Pablo de Heredia, Costa Rica

Incredible? Well, it seems the Costa Rican government is trying to fix it... The following is the bad news:

According to La Nacíon, the Post Office of Costa Rica estimates it will take 10 to 15 years to change its address system from a descriptive one to a more detailed one with street names and numbers. Correos de Costa Rica has already developed a new system and has in place 400,000 new addresses for the metropolitan areas of San Jose, Alajuela, Heredia and Cartago.

New addresses consist of three parts. For example the address of the Contraloría in San Jose is:
Av12-Ca50-#51. The last number is the distance from the corner of the first two, to the entrance. For example, this address would be located on 12th Avenue, 51 meters from the corner of 12th Avenue and 50th Street. Which side of 50th Street you may ask? The second number is the lesser of the two numbers on either side. For example, since 50th street is used, the location is between 50th and 52nd Street, therefore west of 50th Street.

Which side of Avenue 12 you might ask? In order to determine which side of the street or avenue (relating to the first number in an address) the third part of the address (the distance) is even on the east side of streets and odd on the west side of streets. For avenues, it is odd on the north side and even on the south side. Therefore since 51 meters is used and it is odd, the Contraloría entrance is on the north side of Avenue 12.

Read the whole thing, it is hillarious.

Posted by David A at May 22, 2006 02:13 PM
Filed Under Life in Costa Rica | 345 Words

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Comments

Yannow, I'm an idiot. All this time, I hadn't realized that you're living in CR. That's where the Venomous Hubby wants to move, now that he's retired military and finding that civilian life is more boring than, well, white bread. I'll have to peruse your "Life in Costa Rica" section (which I just now noticed) a while and may hit you up with questions, if you don't mind?

Utopia, indeed!

Posted by: Venomous Kate at May 22, 2006 08:32 PM

Of course I dont mind. Hit me up any time. And if you need help with a relocation fown the line, let me know and The Utopia Group can help.

Posted by: David Scott Anderson at May 22, 2006 09:22 PM