Anonymous #2 30w

And actually, this is a common issue with maps in countries that didn’t have European addressing systems imposed on them, but only Google has been able to overcome it (with tons of investment). Countries like Japan and India do not divide and identify geographical spaces like we do. Japan doesn’t use sequential numbering for buildings and some areas of India don’t use street names like we do. In many parts of the East, the addresses are literally “down the road from x landmark” or…

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Anonymous #2 30w

…”across from y landmark”. In some countries, post office employees, taxi drivers, and tax officials end up being the only ones that actually know real addresses. Only in the last decade has this started changing. There’s an article about this in the Guardian about Beirut specifically: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jun/02/mapping-beirut-style-how-to-navigate-a-city-without-using-any-street-names

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