It might seem a normal thing to us now, but the history of these street signs in Paris is actually quite interesting. All of them look like this one - white letters on blue background with the arrondissement listed at the top.
In 1728, the French authorities declared that anyone living on a street corner had to put up a sign with the street name on, in letters 2.5 inches high. In 1823, iron signs replaced these and standard colours of black background and white lettering were introduced, soon changing to blue background.
A lot of streets in Paris are named after historical events, largely thanks to Napoleon (eg. Rue d'Austerlitz - one of Napoelon's great victories) and the Revolution (eg. Place de la Liberté). This one, Rue de Charonne, is the street where I live and is medieval in origin. Charonne used to be a country village, but of course is now in fairly central Paris! You can find out more about French street signs here: http://www.francetoday.com/articles/2013/05/26/reading_french_street_signs.html
I've always liked these street signs. Ours seem so plain. However, they are changing the colors from "various colors with capital letters" to green with mostly lower case letters. Nice capture and story.
In our cities the houses has a name in the past before street names and numbers. I think also Napoleon is to blame we have streets and numbers now .Lodewijk Napoleon Bonaparte a youngest brother of Napoleon Bonaparte has been king of the Netherlands,(Holland)
Great capture and a great interesting explanation
Great capture and a great interesting explanation