Storey
Encyclopedia
A storey or story (American English
) is any level part of a building
that could be used by people (for living, work, storage, recreation, etc.). The plurals are storeys and stories, respectively.
The terms floor, level, or deck can also be used in this sense; except that one may use "ground floor" and "ground level" for the floor closer to what is considered the ground
or street
level, whereas "storey" is commonly used only for levels strictly above or below that level The words "storey" and "floor" also generally exclude levels of the building that have no roof, even if they are used by people—such as the terrace on the top roof of many buildings.
House
s commonly have only a few floors, often only one. Buildings are often classified as low-rise, mid-rise, and high-rise according to how many levels they contain; but these categories are not well-defined. The tallest skyscrapers in the world have about a hundred floors (as of 2009).
The height
of each storey is based on the ceiling
height of the rooms plus the thickness of the floor
s between each. Generally this is around ten feet or three metres total, however it varies widely from just under this figure to well over it. Storeys within a building need not be all the same height — often the lobby
is more spacious, for example. Higher levels may be smaller in area than the ones beneath (a prominent feature of the Willis Tower).
In English, the principal floor or main floor of a house is the floor that contains the chief apartment
s; it is usually the ground floor, or the floor above. In Italy
the main floor of a home is usually above the ground level, and may be called the piano nobile
("noble floor").
The attic
or loft
is a storey just below the building's roof; its ceiling is often slanted and/or at a different height than that of other floors. A penthouse
is a luxury apartment on the topmost storey of a building. A basement
is a storey below the main or ground floor; the first (or only) basement of a home is also called the lower ground floor.
Split-level homes have floors that offset from each other by less than the height of a full storey. A mezzanine
, in particular, is typically a floor halfway between the ground floor and the next higher floor. Homes with a split-level entry have the entire main floor raised half a story height above the street entrance level, and a basement that is half a storey below this level.
There are also multi-storey car park
s, also known as parking garages.
used for a building's floors. There are two major schemes in use across the world. In one system, used for instance in the majority of Europe
, the ground floor is the floor on the ground and often has no number or is assigned the number zero. Therefore the next floor up is assigned the number 1 and is the first floor. The other system, used in the United States
for instance, counts the bottom floor as number 1 or first floor. The next floor up then becomes the second floor and so on. Having the first floor above the ground floor means that subterranean levels (often listed with increasing depth as B1, B2..) can be counted without having a gap at 0 (ground). In both systems, the numbering of higher floors continues sequentially as one goes up, as shown in the following table:
Each scheme has further variations depending on how one refers to the ground floor and the subterranean levels. The existence of two incompatible conventions is a common source of confusion in international communication, sometimes even between communities who speak the same language.
In all English-speaking countries, however, the storeys in a building are counted in the same way. Thus, for example, the phrase a seven-storey building would mean the same thing in Britain and in the US — namely, a building with seven covered floors, including one at ground level and six at higher levels; even though the topmost of those levels would be called "6th floor" in Britain, and "7th floor" in the US. Some count mezzanines as storeys, some ignore them.
, the "first storey" or "first floor" is the level above ground level. This system is used in Denmark
but not in the other Scandinavia
n countries This scheme is also used in many of the Commonwealth nations
(except Singapore
and most of Canada
), many former British colonies
, and in many Latin America
n countries, including Mexico
and Brazil
.
This convention can be traced back to Medieval European usage. In countries that use this system, the floor at ground level is usually referred to by a special name, usually translating as "Ground Floor" or equivalent. For example, rez de chaussée ("street level") in France
, Erdgeschoss ("ground floor") in Germany
, pianterreno (lit. "ground floor") in Italy
, begane grond ("walked-upon ground") in Dutch
, planta baja ("bottom floor") in Spain
, andar térreo ("ground walkplace") in Brazil
, "rés-do-chão" ("close to the ground") in Portugal
, földszint ("ground level") in Hungary
, parter ("based on French par terre which means along ground") in Poland
, prízemie ("close to the ground") in Slovakia
, and pritličje ("close to the ground") in Slovenia
. In some countries that use this scheme, the higher floors may be explicitly qualified as being above the ground level — such as in Slovenian prvo nadstropje (literally "first upper floor").
In Barcelona Spain
the level above ground level is sometimes "Entresuelo", and the next one "Principal". The "first floor" can therefore be three levels above ground level.
-speaking parts of Canada generally follow the American convention, where the "first" floor is the floor at the ground level and the floor above it is the "second" floor. Canada however uses the spelling storey, not story. In Quebec
, the European scheme was formerly used (as in France), but by now it has been mostly replaced by the US system; so that rez-de-chaussée and premier étage ("first stage") are now generally equivalent in Quebec. Mexico
, on the other hand, uses the European system.
The US system is also used in Russia
and some countries of the former Soviet Union
, in Scandinavia
n countries except Denmark
, and in some (but not all) Latin American countries. So, for example, planta baja and primer piso ("first floor"), which are distinct in Spain and Mexico
, are equivalent in Chile
and Peru
, and refer both to the ground-level floor (although primer piso is used mainly for indoor areas, while planta baja is also used for areas outside the building).
Most countries in eastern Asia
, including China
, Japan
, and Singapore
, follow the North American system. In the grammar of the respective languages, the numbers precede the word "floor", and are cardinals rather than ordinals
; so they would translate literally as "1 floor, 2 floor" (etc.), rather than
"1st floor, 2nd floor", or "floor 1, floor 2".
In Singapore, the British system of numbering originally prevailed, but this was replaced in the 1980s with the North American scheme to avoid confusion with the Chinese scheme. In order to emphasise the difference from the original scheme, reference is frequently made to storeys or levels rather than floors) - so the 3rd floor is the 4th storey (or storey 4) or 4th level (or level 4). Many buildings continue to label storeys or levels rather than floors. Some time later, some newer buildings began to use 'floors' instead of naming them as 'storeys' or 'levels'.
or owners to suggest a posh UK/ European setting.
Occasionally, buildings in the United States and Canada will have both a "1st floor" (usually the main floor of the building) and a "ground floor" below it. This typically happens when both floors have street-level entrances, as is often the case for hillside buildings. In the UK, the lower of these floors would be called the lower ground floor, while the upper would be called either the upper ground floor or simply the ground floor.
Sometimes, floor number 1 may be assigned to the lowest basement level; in that case the ground floor may be numbered 2 or higher. Sometimes two connected buildings (such as a store and its carpark) have incongruent floor numberings, due to sloping terrain or different ceiling heights.
In Sweden
the floors are numbered as in the North American scheme ("1st" = "ground", "2nd", etc.); but one can also refer to them by how many flights of stair
s one needs to climb to reach them from the ground floor. So, 2:a våningen ("2nd floor") is the same as 1 trappa upp ("1 stair up"); 3:e våningen ("3rd floor") is also 2 trappor upp ("2 stairs up"); and so on. In modern lifts, however, floors are numbered according to British convention, where the street level is referred to E (for "entré", or entrance) or BV (for bottenvåning, or bottom floor) and the next floor is given the number 1.
American and Canadian buildings typically omit the thirteenth floor
in their floor numbering because of common superstition
surrounding this number. The floor numbering may either go straight from 12 to 14, or the floor may be given an alternative name such as "Skyline". In certain Asian countries, some buildings (especially hospitals) may lack floors numbered 4, 14, 24, etc., due to the similarity in pronunciation
between the words "four" and "death" in the respective languages. Some governments frown on the practice of skipping floor numbers and even building numbers.
In Hong Kong
, the British numbering system is now generally used, in English and Chinese
alike. In some older residential buildings, however, the floors are identified by signs in Chinese character
s that say "二樓" ("2 floor") at the floor just above ground, as in the North American system. For those buildings, the Chinese phrase "三樓" or its English equivalent "3rd floor" may refer either to the storey three levels above ground (as in the modern numbering), which is actually labeled "四樓" ("4 floor"); or to the storey with the sign "三樓" ("3 floor"), which is only two levels above ground. This confusing state of affairs has led, for example, to numerous errors in utility billing. To avoid ambiguity, business forms often ask that storey numbers in address fields be written as accessed from a lift.
In some Chinese
and Taiwan
ese buildings (typically high-rises), the 4th floor is actually omitted or skipped, with the floor above the third numbered as the fifth and so on. This is due to the Chinese word for "four" being very phonetically similar (though not exact homonyms in most dialects due to their intonations) to the word for "dead" or "die". Also for this reason, apartments on the 4th floor in Asian countries such as Taiwan have traditionally been cheaper to rent. This cultural superstition can be considered a form of tetraphobia
.
Example: in Polish language
there is a clear distinction: parter means ground floor, piętro means floor above parter, usually with ordinal: 1. piętro, 2. piętro etc., therefore parter is the zeroth piętro. Older elevators in Poland
have button P for ground floor (parter) and S for basement (suterena). Elevators installed since 1990 have 0 for parter and -1, -2 ... for underground floors.
level, when it is not counted as a separate floor in the building's numbering scheme.
In modern signage, at least in North America, a five-pointed star
(★) additionally appears beside the button for the "main entry" floor. In the United States
, the five-pointed star marking is mandated by Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
, as described in Section 4.10.12(2) of the ADA Accessibility Guidelines for Buildings and Facilities (ADAAG).
If there is more than one basement, the next level down may be marked SB for "Sub-Basement". The lower levels may also be numbered B1, B2, etc.. Negative numbers are sometimes used −1 for the first level below ground, −2 for the second one, etc..
" (and P1, P2, etc. for multiple parking floors), S for "Skyway", R for "Restaurant" or Roof
, PH for "Penthouse", OD for "Observation Deck
", etc.. In some US buildings, the label G on the elevator may stand for the building's "Garage", which need not be located on the "Ground" floor.
One hotel in Toronto marks the first six floors as A, M, MM, C, H, and 1 (for "Arcade", "Main", "Main Mezzanine", "Convention", "Health Club", and "1st floor"). The North Carolina Museum of Art, whose entrance is on the third floor up, has the floors lettered C, B, A (the main floor), and O (for "Office"). The Festival Walk
mall in Hong Kong
has floors labelled LG2 and LG1 ("Lower Ground 2" and "1"), G ("Ground"), and UG ("Upper Ground").
Romania uses Roman numerals for floor numbers in postal addresses, but Arabic numerals in all but the oldest elevators.
An offset may be used to accommodate unnumbered floors. For example, in a building with floors labeled G, M, 1, 2, ..., 11 and 12, the 4th room in each of those floors could be numbered 104, 114, 124, 134, ..., 224, and 234, respectively — with an offset of 11 in the floor numbers. This trick is sometimes used to make the floor number slightly less obvious, e.g. for security or marketing reasons.
In Portugal, the rule (official standard) is:
These two rules, universally adopted, made many things easy, namely for blind people, who don't need to ask where is the apartment "X".
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
) is any level part of a building
Building
In architecture, construction, engineering, real estate development and technology the word building may refer to one of the following:...
that could be used by people (for living, work, storage, recreation, etc.). The plurals are storeys and stories, respectively.
The terms floor, level, or deck can also be used in this sense; except that one may use "ground floor" and "ground level" for the floor closer to what is considered the ground
Soil
Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...
or street
Street
A street is a paved public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable...
level, whereas "storey" is commonly used only for levels strictly above or below that level The words "storey" and "floor" also generally exclude levels of the building that have no roof, even if they are used by people—such as the terrace on the top roof of many buildings.
House
House
A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...
s commonly have only a few floors, often only one. Buildings are often classified as low-rise, mid-rise, and high-rise according to how many levels they contain; but these categories are not well-defined. The tallest skyscrapers in the world have about a hundred floors (as of 2009).
The height
Height
Height is the measurement of vertical distance, but has two meanings in common use. It can either indicate how "tall" something is, or how "high up" it is. For example "The height of the building is 50 m" or "The height of the airplane is 10,000 m"...
of each storey is based on the ceiling
Ceiling
A ceiling is an overhead interior surface that covers the upper limit of a room. It is generally not a structural element, but a finished surface concealing the underside of the floor or roof structure above....
height of the rooms plus the thickness of the floor
Floor
A floor is the walking surface of a room or vehicle. Floors vary from simple dirt in a cave to many-layered surfaces using modern technology...
s between each. Generally this is around ten feet or three metres total, however it varies widely from just under this figure to well over it. Storeys within a building need not be all the same height — often the lobby
Lobby (room)
A lobby is a room in a building which is used for entry from the outside. Sometimes referred to as a foyer or an entrance hall.Many office buildings, hotels and skyscrapers go to great lengths to decorate their lobbies to create the right impression....
is more spacious, for example. Higher levels may be smaller in area than the ones beneath (a prominent feature of the Willis Tower).
In English, the principal floor or main floor of a house is the floor that contains the chief apartment
Apartment
An apartment or flat is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building...
s; it is usually the ground floor, or the floor above. In Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
the main floor of a home is usually above the ground level, and may be called the piano nobile
Piano nobile
The piano nobile is the principal floor of a large house, usually built in one of the styles of classical renaissance architecture...
("noble floor").
The attic
Attic
An attic is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building . Attic is generally the American/Canadian reference to it...
or loft
Loft
A loft can be an upper story or attic in a building, directly under the roof. Alternatively, a loft apartment refers to large adaptable open space, often converted for residential use from some other use, often light industrial...
is a storey just below the building's roof; its ceiling is often slanted and/or at a different height than that of other floors. A penthouse
Penthouse apartment
A penthouse apartment or penthouse is an apartment that is on one of the highest floors of an apartment building. Penthouses are typically differentiated from other apartments by luxury features.-History:...
is a luxury apartment on the topmost storey of a building. A basement
Basement
__FORCETOC__A basement is one or more floors of a building that are either completely or partially below the ground floor. Basements are typically used as a utility space for a building where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, car park, and air-conditioning system...
is a storey below the main or ground floor; the first (or only) basement of a home is also called the lower ground floor.
Split-level homes have floors that offset from each other by less than the height of a full storey. A mezzanine
Mezzanine (architecture)
In architecture, a mezzanine or entresol is an intermediate floor between main floors of a building, and therefore typically not counted among the overall floors of a building. Often, a mezzanine is low-ceilinged and projects in the form of a balcony. The term is also used for the lowest balcony in...
, in particular, is typically a floor halfway between the ground floor and the next higher floor. Homes with a split-level entry have the entire main floor raised half a story height above the street entrance level, and a basement that is half a storey below this level.
There are also multi-storey car park
Multi-storey car park
A multi-storey car-park is a building designed specifically to be for car parking and where there are a number of floors or levels on which parking takes place...
s, also known as parking garages.
Numbering
Floor numbering is the numbering schemeNumbering scheme
There are many different numbering schemes for assigning nominal numbers to entities. These generally require an agreed set of rules, or a central coordinator. The schemes can be considered to be examples of a primary key of a database management system table, whose table definitions require a...
used for a building's floors. There are two major schemes in use across the world. In one system, used for instance in the majority of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, the ground floor is the floor on the ground and often has no number or is assigned the number zero. Therefore the next floor up is assigned the number 1 and is the first floor. The other system, used in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
for instance, counts the bottom floor as number 1 or first floor. The next floor up then becomes the second floor and so on. Having the first floor above the ground floor means that subterranean levels (often listed with increasing depth as B1, B2..) can be counted without having a gap at 0 (ground). In both systems, the numbering of higher floors continues sequentially as one goes up, as shown in the following table:
| Displacement from ground level | British convention | American convention |
|---|---|---|
| 3 storeys heights above ground | "3rd floor" | "4th floor" |
| 2 storeys heights above ground | "2nd floor" | "3rd floor" |
| 1 storey height above ground | "1st floor" | "2nd floor" |
| at ground level | "Ground floor" | "Ground floor" or "1st floor" |
Each scheme has further variations depending on how one refers to the ground floor and the subterranean levels. The existence of two incompatible conventions is a common source of confusion in international communication, sometimes even between communities who speak the same language.
In all English-speaking countries, however, the storeys in a building are counted in the same way. Thus, for example, the phrase a seven-storey building would mean the same thing in Britain and in the US — namely, a building with seven covered floors, including one at ground level and six at higher levels; even though the topmost of those levels would be called "6th floor" in Britain, and "7th floor" in the US. Some count mezzanines as storeys, some ignore them.
European scheme
In most of EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, the "first storey" or "first floor" is the level above ground level. This system is used in Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
but not in the other Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
n countries This scheme is also used in many of the Commonwealth nations
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
(except Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
and most of Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
), many former British colonies
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
, and in many Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n countries, including Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
.
This convention can be traced back to Medieval European usage. In countries that use this system, the floor at ground level is usually referred to by a special name, usually translating as "Ground Floor" or equivalent. For example, rez de chaussée ("street level") in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Erdgeschoss ("ground floor") in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, pianterreno (lit. "ground floor") in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, begane grond ("walked-upon ground") in Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, planta baja ("bottom floor") in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, andar térreo ("ground walkplace") in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, "rés-do-chão" ("close to the ground") in Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, földszint ("ground level") in Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, parter ("based on French par terre which means along ground") in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, prízemie ("close to the ground") in Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
, and pritličje ("close to the ground") in Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
. In some countries that use this scheme, the higher floors may be explicitly qualified as being above the ground level — such as in Slovenian prvo nadstropje (literally "first upper floor").
In Barcelona Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
the level above ground level is sometimes "Entresuelo", and the next one "Principal". The "first floor" can therefore be three levels above ground level.
US/North American scheme
The EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
-speaking parts of Canada generally follow the American convention, where the "first" floor is the floor at the ground level and the floor above it is the "second" floor. Canada however uses the spelling storey, not story. In Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, the European scheme was formerly used (as in France), but by now it has been mostly replaced by the US system; so that rez-de-chaussée and premier étage ("first stage") are now generally equivalent in Quebec. Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, on the other hand, uses the European system.
The US system is also used in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and some countries of the former Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, in Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
n countries except Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, and in some (but not all) Latin American countries. So, for example, planta baja and primer piso ("first floor"), which are distinct in Spain and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, are equivalent in Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
and Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
, and refer both to the ground-level floor (although primer piso is used mainly for indoor areas, while planta baja is also used for areas outside the building).
Most countries in eastern Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, including China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, and Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, follow the North American system. In the grammar of the respective languages, the numbers precede the word "floor", and are cardinals rather than ordinals
Ordinal number (linguistics)
In linguistics, ordinal numbers are the words representing the rank of a number with respect to some order, in particular order or position . Its use may refer to size, importance, chronology, etc...
; so they would translate literally as "1 floor, 2 floor" (etc.), rather than
"1st floor, 2nd floor", or "floor 1, floor 2".
In Singapore, the British system of numbering originally prevailed, but this was replaced in the 1980s with the North American scheme to avoid confusion with the Chinese scheme. In order to emphasise the difference from the original scheme, reference is frequently made to storeys or levels rather than floors) - so the 3rd floor is the 4th storey (or storey 4) or 4th level (or level 4). Many buildings continue to label storeys or levels rather than floors. Some time later, some newer buildings began to use 'floors' instead of naming them as 'storeys' or 'levels'.
Idiosyncrasies
Some American high-rise buildings follow the British system, often out of a desire on the part of the building's architectArchitect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
or owners to suggest a posh UK/ European setting.
Occasionally, buildings in the United States and Canada will have both a "1st floor" (usually the main floor of the building) and a "ground floor" below it. This typically happens when both floors have street-level entrances, as is often the case for hillside buildings. In the UK, the lower of these floors would be called the lower ground floor, while the upper would be called either the upper ground floor or simply the ground floor.
Sometimes, floor number 1 may be assigned to the lowest basement level; in that case the ground floor may be numbered 2 or higher. Sometimes two connected buildings (such as a store and its carpark) have incongruent floor numberings, due to sloping terrain or different ceiling heights.
In Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
the floors are numbered as in the North American scheme ("1st" = "ground", "2nd", etc.); but one can also refer to them by how many flights of stair
Stair
The hamlet of Stair in Scotland nestles at the bottom of a glen beside the River Ayr at the north-west border of the 5,376 acre parish of Stair where the River Ayr is joined by Glenstang Burn in what is now known as East Ayrshire....
s one needs to climb to reach them from the ground floor. So, 2:a våningen ("2nd floor") is the same as 1 trappa upp ("1 stair up"); 3:e våningen ("3rd floor") is also 2 trappor upp ("2 stairs up"); and so on. In modern lifts, however, floors are numbered according to British convention, where the street level is referred to E (for "entré", or entrance) or BV (for bottenvåning, or bottom floor) and the next floor is given the number 1.
American and Canadian buildings typically omit the thirteenth floor
Thirteenth floor
Thirteenth floor is a designation of a level of a multi-level building that is often omitted in countries where the number is considered unlucky...
in their floor numbering because of common superstition
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....
surrounding this number. The floor numbering may either go straight from 12 to 14, or the floor may be given an alternative name such as "Skyline". In certain Asian countries, some buildings (especially hospitals) may lack floors numbered 4, 14, 24, etc., due to the similarity in pronunciation
Tetraphobia
Tetraphobia is an aversion to or fear of the number . It is a superstition most common in East Asian regions such as Mainland China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Vietnam....
between the words "four" and "death" in the respective languages. Some governments frown on the practice of skipping floor numbers and even building numbers.
In Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, the British numbering system is now generally used, in English and Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
alike. In some older residential buildings, however, the floors are identified by signs in Chinese character
Chinese character
Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...
s that say "二樓" ("2 floor") at the floor just above ground, as in the North American system. For those buildings, the Chinese phrase "三樓" or its English equivalent "3rd floor" may refer either to the storey three levels above ground (as in the modern numbering), which is actually labeled "四樓" ("4 floor"); or to the storey with the sign "三樓" ("3 floor"), which is only two levels above ground. This confusing state of affairs has led, for example, to numerous errors in utility billing. To avoid ambiguity, business forms often ask that storey numbers in address fields be written as accessed from a lift.
In some Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
ese buildings (typically high-rises), the 4th floor is actually omitted or skipped, with the floor above the third numbered as the fifth and so on. This is due to the Chinese word for "four" being very phonetically similar (though not exact homonyms in most dialects due to their intonations) to the word for "dead" or "die". Also for this reason, apartments on the 4th floor in Asian countries such as Taiwan have traditionally been cheaper to rent. This cultural superstition can be considered a form of tetraphobia
Tetraphobia
Tetraphobia is an aversion to or fear of the number . It is a superstition most common in East Asian regions such as Mainland China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Vietnam....
.
Elevator buttons
In most of the world, elevator buttons for storeys above the ground level are usually marked with the corresponding numbers. In many countries, modern elevators also have Braille numbers—often mandated by law.European scheme
In countries that use the European system, the ground floor is either marked 0, or with the initial letter of the local word for ground floor (G, E etc.), successive floors are then marked 1, 2 etc. However, even when the ground floor button is marked with a letter, some digital position indicators may show 0 when the lift / elevator is on that floor. If the building also contains floors below ground, negative numbers are common. This then gives a conventional numbering sequence -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, ...Example: in Polish language
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
there is a clear distinction: parter means ground floor, piętro means floor above parter, usually with ordinal: 1. piętro, 2. piętro etc., therefore parter is the zeroth piętro. Older elevators in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
have button P for ground floor (parter) and S for basement (suterena). Elevators installed since 1990 have 0 for parter and -1, -2 ... for underground floors.
North American scheme
In countries that use the North American system, where "floor 1" is the same as "ground floor", the corresponding button may be marked either with 1, or with a letter, as in the European scheme. In either case, the next button will be labeled 2. In buildings that have both a "1st floor" and a "ground floor", they may be labeled 1 and G; or M (for "Main") and LM (for "Lower Main"). M may also be used to designate a mezzanineMezzanine (architecture)
In architecture, a mezzanine or entresol is an intermediate floor between main floors of a building, and therefore typically not counted among the overall floors of a building. Often, a mezzanine is low-ceilinged and projects in the form of a balcony. The term is also used for the lowest balcony in...
level, when it is not counted as a separate floor in the building's numbering scheme.
In modern signage, at least in North America, a five-pointed star
Five-pointed star
A five-pointed star is a very common ideogram throughout the world. If the colinear edges are joined together a pentagram is produced, which is the simplest of the unicursal star polygons, and a symbol of mystical and magical significance....
(★) additionally appears beside the button for the "main entry" floor. In the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the five-pointed star marking is mandated by Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is a law that was enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1990. It was signed into law on July 26, 1990, by President George H. W. Bush, and later amended with changes effective January 1, 2009....
, as described in Section 4.10.12(2) of the ADA Accessibility Guidelines for Buildings and Facilities (ADAAG).
Subterranean floors
The numbering of levels below ground is also quite varied, even within the same country. In English-speaking countries, the first level below ground may be labelled B for "Basement", LL for "Lower Level" or "Lower Lobby", C for "Cellar", D for "Dungeon" in few buildings, or, in the case of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, U for "Underground". In British department stores, LG for "Lower Ground" is commonly encountered, as the term "basement" is considered inappropriate for their image.If there is more than one basement, the next level down may be marked SB for "Sub-Basement". The lower levels may also be numbered B1, B2, etc.. Negative numbers are sometimes used −1 for the first level below ground, −2 for the second one, etc..
Other labels
Elevator buttons may also be labeled according to their main function. In English-speaking countries, besides the common L for "Lobby", one may find P for "Pool" or "ParkingParking
Parking is the act of stopping a vehicle and leaving it unoccupied for more than a brief time. Parking on one or both sides of a road is commonly permitted, though often with restrictions...
" (and P1, P2, etc. for multiple parking floors), S for "Skyway", R for "Restaurant" or Roof
Roof
A roof is the covering on the uppermost part of a building. A roof protects the building and its contents from the effects of weather. Structures that require roofs range from a letter box to a cathedral or stadium, dwellings being the most numerous....
, PH for "Penthouse", OD for "Observation Deck
Observation deck
__FORCETOC__ An observation deck, observation platform or viewing platform is an elevated sightseeing platform usually situated upon a tall architectural structure such as a skyscraper or observation tower...
", etc.. In some US buildings, the label G on the elevator may stand for the building's "Garage", which need not be located on the "Ground" floor.
One hotel in Toronto marks the first six floors as A, M, MM, C, H, and 1 (for "Arcade", "Main", "Main Mezzanine", "Convention", "Health Club", and "1st floor"). The North Carolina Museum of Art, whose entrance is on the third floor up, has the floors lettered C, B, A (the main floor), and O (for "Office"). The Festival Walk
Festival Walk
Festival Walk is an upmarket shopping centre in Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong owned by Swire Properties from 1998 to 2011. It was the biggest shopping mall in Hong Kong at its launch in November 1998. Festival Walk was developed jointly by Swire Properties and CITIC Pacific in 1993–1998. In 2006, Swire...
mall in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
has floors labelled LG2 and LG1 ("Lower Ground 2" and "1"), G ("Ground"), and UG ("Upper Ground").
Romania uses Roman numerals for floor numbers in postal addresses, but Arabic numerals in all but the oldest elevators.
Room numbering
In modern buildings, especially large ones, room or apartment numbers are usually tied to the floor numbers, so that one can figure out the latter from the former. Typically one uses the floor number with one or two extra digits appended to identify the room within the floor. For example, room 215 could be the 15th room of floor 2 (or 5th room of floor 21), but to avoid this confusion one dot is sometimes used to separate the floor from the room (2.15 refers to 2nd floor, 15th room and 21.5 refers to 21st floor, 5th room) or a leading zero is placed before a single-digit room number (i.e. the 5th room of floor 21 would be 2105). Letters may be used, instead of digits, to identify the room within the floor—such as 21E instead of 215. Often odd numbers are used for rooms on one side of a hallway, even numbers for rooms on the other side.An offset may be used to accommodate unnumbered floors. For example, in a building with floors labeled G, M, 1, 2, ..., 11 and 12, the 4th room in each of those floors could be numbered 104, 114, 124, 134, ..., 224, and 234, respectively — with an offset of 11 in the floor numbers. This trick is sometimes used to make the floor number slightly less obvious, e.g. for security or marketing reasons.
In Portugal, the rule (official standard) is:
- In buildings with only two sides, all the apartments are marked as Esq. (Esquerdo = Left) or Dto. (Direito = Right). So we have C/V Esq. (Underground Floor Left), R/C Esq. (Ground Floor Left), 1º. Esq (1st Floor Left), etc.; and C/V Dto. (Underground Floor Right), R/C Dto. (Ground Floor Right) 1º. Dto. (1st Floor Right), etc.
- Buildings with more than two apartments per floor, are marked with letters, clockwise within each deck. So apartment 8º-D (not 8D) means the 8th floor (hence the character "º" meaning ordinal number), apartment D (counting in clockwise direction, for those who are in the floor entrance). But a very common form for buildings with three apartments per floor is, Esq.-Frt./Fte. (Frente, en: Front - for the apartment located between left and right)-Dto.
These two rules, universally adopted, made many things easy, namely for blind people, who don't need to ask where is the apartment "X".