Bucharest street numbering: where the numbers start and which side the odd ones are on

#What does the rule say about numbering streets?

Decision 31/2003 of the Bucharest General Council (articles 13 and 14) sets three rules:

• On radial traffic arteries, numbering starts at the centre and goes towards the periphery.
• Buildings on the right of the artery get even numbers, those on the left odd numbers.
• On secondary arteries numbering starts counter-clockwise, and in squares it runs continuously in that direction.

The text does not say which way to face and does not define a “radial artery”. The test here looks in the direction the numbers rise, so the right side is the even one, and treats as radial any street whose axis points at the centre (see the method). The 2000 decision that the 2003 one replaced started numbering of secondary arteries “at the main artery”. No newer text that replaces them was found, and none that confirms the 2003 decision is still in force.

#Which side are the odd numbers on?

On 2,171 of 2,176 streets (99.8%), walking in the direction the numbers rise, the odd ones are mostly on the left and the even ones on the right. Only streets with at least three odd and three even numbers are counted (2,211 streets); 35 of them have addresses mixed on both sides and stay out of the percentage. On the other five the sides are reversed; most likely a mapping error, but the map cannot prove that. Every address is measured against its nearest street segment, so a curved street does not flip the side.

#Do the numbers start at the centre?

The question makes sense for 1,049 streets: those whose axis between the two ends points at the centre within 45°, and whose middle is more than a kilometre from the centre (Piața Unirii). The low number is at the centre end on 918 of them (87.5%). The share depends on the definition: 82.7% if the axis may deviate by 60° instead of 45°, 88.3% if only by 32°; 83.7% or 91.6% if the two ends must differ by more than 200 or 500 m in distance to the centre; 86.1% if the centre is moved one kilometre north to Piața Universității; 87.4% if each street name is counted once.

By distance the share is 96% between 1 and 2.5 km from the centre, 90% between 2.5 and 5 km, 80% between 5 and 8 km and 88% beyond 8 km. It does not fall steadily, so distance alone does not explain the exceptions. What shows clearly is the effect of how many addresses are mapped (the second chart).

The 2000 decision started numbering of secondary arteries at the main artery. On the 290 streets pointing at the centre whose outer end meets a bigger road (by road class in OpenStreetMap), the low number is at the centre end on 80% and at the bigger road on 20%. So “from the bigger road” explains fewer streets than “from the centre”.

#Which streets have the low number at the outer end?

131 streets pointing at the centre have the low number at the outer end. The share with the low number at the centre end rises with the number of mapped addresses: 76% on streets with 8–19 numbers, 86% on those with 20–49 and 97% on those with 50 or more (332 of 341). The table lists the 22 of them that are at least 400 m long, have numbers that clearly rise in one direction and addresses lined up along the street. On the others addresses are few or scattered and the direction can be misread. Some exceptions may be half-mapped streets; the map cannot separate the two causes. Each street in the table opens on the map.

#How it was counted

• The data are OpenStreetMap addresses (Geofabrik extract of 30 October 2026, ODbL licence): 156,912 objects with a street and a house number in the Bucharest area, 146,302 of them inside the six sectors. The decision applies in Bucharest, so streets outside the sectors are left out.
• A street is all segments with the same name that touch or run within 60 m of each other; boulevards with separate carriageways count once. An address belongs to the nearest segment of a street with the name in the address, within 60 m.
• Streets in the sectors are analysed if they have at least eight addresses, six different numbers, addresses spread over more than 150 m and numbers that rise in one direction (correlation of at least 0.5). That is 2,384 streets with 114,299 addresses (78% of those in the sectors). Streets with fewer addresses, shorter ones and streets numbered in pieces are not on the map; when a search finds a street that was left out because its numbers do not rise in one direction, the page says so.
• The start is the end of the drawn street that holds the low numbers. A street is “radial” if the axis between its two ends is within 45° of the direction to the centre and its middle is more than a kilometre from Piața Unirii; the decision does not define radial arteries, so the definition is geometric and includes small streets. 53 streets in the centre have no “centre end” and are drawn separately.
• The odd side is measured on every address, in the direction the numbers rise: a street has its odd side on the left if most odd addresses are on the left and most even ones on the right. For streets that go round the centre, the decision says “counter-clockwise” without saying round what; taken round Piața Unirii, numbers run that way on 41% of the 1,282 streets, so clockwise on the rest. That is not counted as a deviation.
• Squares were not tested: too few have enough addresses in OpenStreetMap. The distance to the end is a straight line between the two ends of the street, so on a curved street it is approximate, and the low number is measured from the end of the drawn street, not from a particular number 1.
• OpenStreetMap is mapped by volunteers. A street that looks like an exception may be incompletely mapped, and a number may be missing or placed on the neighbouring building. Anyone who knows the street can correct the map; addresses can be added directly on openstreetmap.org.

#Sources

• OpenStreetMap, Romania extract (Geofabrik, 30 October 2026), ODbL 1.0, © OpenStreetMap contributors
• Bucharest General Council decision 31/2003, regulation on names and postal numbers, art. 13–14 (copy on hcl.usr.ro)
• Decision 31/2003, PDF on the Bucharest City Hall site (not compared with the copy above)
• Decision 245/2000, the regulation replaced in 2003
• ODbL 1.0 licence

The map data files (streets, addresses, omitted streets) are a derived database from OpenStreetMap and are used under the ODbL 1.0 licence, © OpenStreetMap contributors.