Road designation or abbreviation - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A road designation or a road name abbreviation are easy ways to refer to a road.

The road designation can be created from the original road name or made accordingly to the road type and number

Road number

A road number is often assigned to a stretch of public roadway. The number chosen is often dependent on the type of road, with numbers differentiating between interstates, motorways, arterial thoroughfares, two-lane roads, and so forth.-United Kingdom:...

. Roads designations are used especially to have a non-ambiguous system of labelling roads on maps or on road signs.

Use of letters

The use of letters

Letter (alphabet)

A letter is a grapheme in an alphabetic system of writing, such as the Greek alphabet and its descendants. Letters compose phonemes and each phoneme represents a phone in the spoken form of the language....

allow to create a distinct designation from the road name or the road number. The way this letter is attached to its roadnumber is dependant on the country where the road lies in. For instance, among A1 motorways, the one in Spain has a minus sign between the A and the 1 (Autovia A-1) while in Germany the Autobahn 1 is written A 1, with a space between the A and the 1. In Argentina there is a number of zeros between the A and the 1 (Autopista A001).

Single-letter shortenings

"A
A road
A roads may refer to* A roads in Great Britain* A roads on the Isle of Man* A roads in Latvia* A roads in Lithuania* A roads in Malaysia, state roads in Perak* A roads in Northern Ireland* A roads in Sri Lanka...

" may mean "motorway" in a number of countries (ex. "autoroute" in French)
"B"
"C" may mean county in the US
"D" may mean "départementale" in France or "Diaľnica" in Slovakia
"E" may mean "European" road or "Expressways" in Zimbabwe
"F"
"G"
"H" may mean "Hawaiian Interstate" in the US
"I" may mean "Interstate" in the US
"J"
"K" may be used for a state highway in Kansas in the US
"L"
"M" used for motorways in the United Kingdom, metropolitan routes in South Africa, municipal roads in Portugal and also used for state highway
State highway
State highway, state road or state route can refer to one of three related concepts, two of them related to a state or provincial government in a country that is divided into states or provinces :#A...

s ubn Michigan in the US
"N" may mean "national" road
"O"
"P"
"Q"
"R" may mean "regional" route in South Africa and Portugal or "ring" road or "Rýchlostná cesta" in Slovakia
"S"
"T" T roads in Malaysia are roads in Terrengganu
"U" may mean "unclassified" road; also used in Utah routes in the US
"V"
"W"
"X"
"Y"
"Z"

Multiple-letter shortenings

BAB: Bundesautobahn in Germany
CH/CR: County Highway, Route or Road in the US or Canada among other countries
SH/SR: State Highway, Route or Road in New Zealand or the US
TH/TR: Township
Civil township
A civil township is a widely used unit of local government in the United States, subordinate to, and geographic divisions of, a county. Specific responsibilities and the degree of autonomy vary based on each state. Civil townships are distinct from survey townships, but in states that have both,...

Highway, Route or Road in the US
US: United States Numbered Highway

Road systems

Depending on the country, the letter attributed to a road may be part of a road grading system, be a shortening

Abbreviation

An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase. Usually, but not always, it consists of a letter or group of letters taken from the word or phrase...

for a type of road especially in a foreign language or refer to a geographical zoning system, such as the Appalachian Development Highway System

Appalachian Development Highway System

The Appalachian Development Highway System is part of the Appalachian Regional Commission in the United States. See: .-History:...

or the county highway

County highway

A county highway is a road in the United States and in the Canadian province of Ontario that is designated and/or maintained by the county highway department...

systems of California

County routes in California

In the U.S. state of California, county routes are controlled and maintained by the respective counties in which they reside. However, they are generally patrolled by the state's California Highway Patrol....

, Iowa, and Michigan in the United States.

International systems

AH roads in the Asian Highway Network
E road
International E-road network
The international E-road network is a numbering system for roads in Europe developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe . The network is numbered from E 1 up and its roads cross national borders...

s in the International E-road network in Europe

Australian M, A, B, C, D system

M is for primary roads, A for single carriageway interstates, B for secondary highways, C for roads linking small settlements and D for unsealed roads linking very small remote towns.

British M, A, B, C, D, U system

M stands for "motorway" while A, B, C, D are grades of roads, and U means "unclassified".

Cyprus A, B, E, F system

A stands for motorway and B is for main roads. E and F are for smaller local roads.

French A, N, D system

A stands for "autoroute" (motorway), N for "national road", D for "départementale" road and C for "communale".

Senegal N, R system

N stands for "national" roads while R is for "regional" roads.

Slovak D, R system

D stands for "diaľnica" (motorways) while R is for "rýchlostná cesta" (expressways).

South African N, R, M system

N stands for national road, R stands for regional road and M stands for metropolitan road.