Signposts to destinations over the border

[Vierwielen]

You are quite right - the Duchy joined the German Customs Union in 1842, some 29 years before the unification of Germany was complete. It is also interesting to note that Belgium has a province Brabant and the Netherlands has a province Noord-Brabant.

I had noticed both had a Brabant.

They do, but the Belgian province of Antwerp (Antwerpen/Anvers) is sandwiched in between.

You are quite right, but the pre-1648 Duchy of Brabant approximated all three territories.

[RichardA626]

I had noticed both had a Brabant.

They do, but the Belgian province of Antwerp (Antwerpen/Anvers) is sandwiched in between.

You are quite right, but the pre-1648 Duchy of Brabant approximated all three territories.

That makes sense.

[KeithW]

Norway signs Murmansk on its side of the border. I can't imagine there's much cross border traffic in this quiet corner of the Arctic.

https://goo.gl/maps/DTZ39btuX5rgnq3P8

Murmansk is a major ice free port with a population of over 300,000 so you might be surprised as it is the Russian end of the sea route from Churchill on Hudson Bay and Northern Russia. There is I believe a fair bit of trade with Norway as well as the Russian Naval base





AIS ship tracking
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/ho ... 8.8/zoom:5

For a quiet place there are a lot of Nuclear Submarines snooping around the area

[exiled]

They do, but the Belgian province of Antwerp (Antwerpen/Anvers) is sandwiched in between.

You are quite right, but the pre-1648 Duchy of Brabant approximated all three territories.

That makes sense.

Brabant was the core of Burgundy at times, then the 17 provinces Netherlands, Spanish Netherlands, Austrian Netherlands, the last two roughly the same area as modern Belgium which has adapted Brabant's heraldry on a national scale. The title of the Belgian heir to the throne is Duchess of Brabant (duke if male). The Belgian province of Brabant however has been split into three, the provinces of Vlaamse Brabant, Brabant Wallon, and the Brussels Capital Region.

There are also two Limburgs between Belgium and the Netherlands.

[Vierwielen]

You are quite right, but the pre-1648 Duchy of Brabant approximated all three territories.

That makes sense.

Brabant was the core of Burgundy at times, then the 17 provinces Netherlands, Spanish Netherlands, Austrian Netherlands, the last two roughly the same area as modern Belgium which has adapted Brabant's heraldry on a national scale. The title of the Belgian heir to the throne is Duchess of Brabant (duke if male). The Belgian province of Brabant however has been split into three, the provinces of Vlaamse Brabant, Brabant Wallon, and the Brussels Capital Region.

There are also two Limburgs between Belgium and the Netherlands.

Had the Belgians not revolted in 1830, Dutch politics would have been interesting. During the 19th and earky 20th centuries, parties were split either on confessional grounds (Catholic or Protestant) or on linguistic grounds. Belgium is almost entirely Catholic with a 50:50 French-Dutch split while the Netherlands is almost entirely Dutch speaking with a 50:50 Catholic-Protestant split. Combined the two countries would have had 50% Dutch-speaking Catholics, 25% Dutch-speaking Protestants and 25% French-speaking Catholics.

[and1969]

Some countries use a white oval with the country code inside, which matches the stickers used to identify the nationality of vehicles.

Latvia and Lithuania both follow this practice.

Lithuania signs Latvian place names using the Lithuanian followed by the Latvian name. As for the sign to Pskov it is only in Latvian - I did not notice any Cyrillic signage in Riga apart from street signs where the paint over the Russian version of the street name had flaked off. I have been to both the locations in the map links.

[Vierwielen]

This Dutch sign is a truly international - seven cities are mentioned: two Dutch, three Belgian and two German with no indication that the Belgian or German cities are in another country.

[Nicola_Jayne]

There are plenty of signs in southern France pointing towards "Barcelone".

Erected by the Montserrat Cabal?

[LiamPR1]

Some countries use a white oval with the country code inside, which matches the stickers used to identify the nationality of vehicles.

Austria does this, as do Switzerland and Germany. Ukraine's new sign standards do the same but I don't think they're actually in use yet for obvious reasons.

If memory serves, so (shockingly, I know) does Liechtenstein.

Italy signs "Repubblica di San Marino" in full, but I don't believe it does that with anywhere else, whilst in San Marino it's just the names of cities - again not shockingly as "Italia" would need to appear on pretty much every sign...

Andorra similarly signs "França" and "Espanya"; whilst Spain does sign "Andorra", but it's not completely clear if they mean the country or Andorra la Vella - I suspect it's the latter as they do sign French cities rather than France itself.

Everywhere else I've driven in Europe just uses city and town names in the local language of the sign as far as I can remember.

Interestingly Luxembourg doesn't use the white oval either, as far as I can tell - it just names cities without worrying which country they're in. But then Luxembourg's signs are all over the show in terms of design anyway.

Greece is a movable feast - in some places it uses the country name (Turkey), in some the name of a city (Bitola, North Macedonia), and in others the very vague "Border Station".

Only just seeing this for the first time. Big fan of the very top "direction" symbol reduced to the size of an emoji!

[exiled]

Some countries use a white oval with the country code inside, which matches the stickers used to identify the nationality of vehicles.

Austria does this, as do Switzerland and Germany. Ukraine's new sign standards do the same but I don't think they're actually in use yet for obvious reasons.

If memory serves, so (shockingly, I know) does Liechtenstein.

Italy signs "Repubblica di San Marino" in full, but I don't believe it does that with anywhere else, whilst in San Marino it's just the names of cities - again not shockingly as "Italia" would need to appear on pretty much every sign...

Andorra similarly signs "França" and "Espanya"; whilst Spain does sign "Andorra", but it's not completely clear if they mean the country or Andorra la Vella - I suspect it's the latter as they do sign French cities rather than France itself.

Everywhere else I've driven in Europe just uses city and town names in the local language of the sign as far as I can remember.

Interestingly Luxembourg doesn't use the white oval either, as far as I can tell - it just names cities without worrying which country they're in. But then Luxembourg's signs are all over the show in terms of design anyway.

Greece is a movable feast - in some places it uses the country name (Turkey), in some the name of a city (Bitola, North Macedonia), and in others the very vague "Border Station".

Just noticed that the Luxembourg sign does not put the è in Liège, strange given it uses French on its signs and has the umlaut in Saarbruken.

[the cheesecake man]

Blimey, how long has it been since Aachen was known as Aix-la-Chapelle in everyday speech in any language? These days it's referred to by that name only in connection with a treaty signed in that city (was it to end the Thirty Years War?) and in celebration of which Handel wrote his Music for the Royal Fireworks.

Or when studying Robert Browning poetry at school

[Vierwielen]

Blimey, how long has it been since Aachen was known as Aix-la-Chapelle in everyday speech in any language? These days it's referred to by that name only in connection with a treaty signed in that city (was it to end the Thirty Years War?) and in celebration of which Handel wrote his Music for the Royal Fireworks.

According to the French Wikipedia it is still Aix-la-Chapelle. I have a sneaky feeling that the name Aachen became more common in everyday English from about the time of the formation of the British Army on the Rhine - after all all the road signs said "Aachen" and ordinary British people (aka squaddies) actually visited the place rather than merely reading about it.

[trickstat]

I've never driven abroad but I remember the following which I've spotted as a passenger or pedestrian - in Thessalonika in Greece in 1991 I spotted a sign to Sofia in Bulgaria (IIRC it was bi-alphabetical), in Hengelo in the eastern Netherlands in 2007 there was a sign to Munster in Germany. In both instances there was no indication that the destination was in a different country.

[WHBM]

Surprising city street sign in Vienna, with directions to three cities in three other countries; Czech, Slovakia and Hungary, while the bicycle route sign to Vienna centre makes it four. Is this a record ?

https://www.google.com/maps/@48.1963241 ... ?entry=ttu

[exiled]

Surprising city street sign in Vienna, with directions to three cities in three other countries; Czech, Slovakia and Hungary, while the bicycle route sign to Vienna centre makes it four. Is this a record ?

https://www.google.com/maps/@48.1963241 ... ?entry=ttu

You'd need either a small country or a place like Vienna where the borders are quite close by and it has borders close by with several countries.

I did find this on the A4 in Luxembourg, showing destinations in Luxembourg, Belgium, France, and Germany.

[Owain]

Surprising city street sign in Vienna, with directions to three cities in three other countries; Czech, Slovakia and Hungary, while the bicycle route sign to Vienna centre makes it four. Is this a record ?

https://www.google.com/maps/@48.1963241 ... ?entry=ttu

You'd need either a small country or a place like Vienna where the borders are quite close by and it has borders close by with several countries.

I did find this on the A4 in Luxembourg, showing destinations in Luxembourg, Belgium, France, and Germany.

How about this?

Ljubljana - Slovenia
Trieste - Italy
Villach - Austria
Zagreb - Croatia

[exiled]

Surprising city street sign in Vienna, with directions to three cities in three other countries; Czech, Slovakia and Hungary, while the bicycle route sign to Vienna centre makes it four. Is this a record ?

https://www.google.com/maps/@48.1963241 ... ?entry=ttu

You'd need either a small country or a place like Vienna where the borders are quite close by and it has borders close by with several countries.

I did find this on the A4 in Luxembourg, showing destinations in Luxembourg, Belgium, France, and Germany.

How about this?

Ljubljana - Slovenia
Trieste - Italy
Villach - Austria
Zagreb - Croatia

Yup, also fits in the small country and close by borders.

[Owain]

You'd need either a small country or a place like Vienna where the borders are quite close by and it has borders close by with several countries.

I did find this on the A4 in Luxembourg, showing destinations in Luxembourg, Belgium, France, and Germany.

How about this?

Ljubljana - Slovenia
Trieste - Italy
Villach - Austria
Zagreb - Croatia

Yup, also fits in the small country and close by borders.

Now I want to go on holiday!

[exiled]

Now I want to go on holiday!

Don't blame you

[Chris Bertram]

Surprising city street sign in Vienna, with directions to three cities in three other countries; Czech, Slovakia and Hungary, while the bicycle route sign to Vienna centre makes it four. Is this a record ?

https://www.google.com/maps/@48.1963241 ... ?entry=ttu

You'd need either a small country or a place like Vienna where the borders are quite close by and it has borders close by with several countries.

I did find this on the A4 in Luxembourg, showing destinations in Luxembourg, Belgium, France, and Germany.

How about this?

Ljubljana - Slovenia
Trieste - Italy
Villach - Austria
Zagreb - Croatia

I love how the Slovene name for Trieste has absolutely no vowels, however they may be defined.