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I'm confused by some of the replies here.

Certainly in towns and cities there are more likely to be house numbers rather than names.

But in rural France ?

Where we live, EVERY house has a name - no number at all...and they are owned mostly, or until recently, by generations, by French people - not English !!!

As for 'JR's gone native' post about 'post code' shared with 100,000 communes - uhmmmm - not certain that is strictly correct.

I had always thought that the 'code' as such is split - the first 2 numbers are the Department number, and the remaining 3 numbers are the number of a particular village....which makes it easy for Le Poste.

Or have I got that wrong ?

Chessie

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[quote user="J.Rs gone native"]I shall keep out of this one Cat and continue to remain bemused, perhaps putting Picardie and Sussex as my location is confusing.[/quote] 

 Not at all confusing its just your contradictory posts that are confusing[Www]

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Our postcode covers twelve villages and one small town. Some of the houses actually in the town and the villages have numbers, some in the more rural areas have names, others don't. There doesn't seem to be a hard and fast rule.

We thought of giving this house a name and while we were thinking about it just put our names on the postbox. Once the postman had found us there didn't seem to be any point.

Hoddy
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[quote user="chessie"]
I'm confused by some of the replies here.

Certainly in towns and cities there are more likely to be house numbers rather than names.

But in rural France ?

Where we live, EVERY house has a name - no number at all...and they are owned mostly, or until recently, by generations, by French people - not English !!!

As for 'JR's gone native' post about 'post code' shared with 100,000 communes - uhmmmm - not certain that is strictly correct.[:-))]

I had always thought that the 'code' as such is split - the first 2 numbers are the Department number, and the remaining 3 numbers are the number of a particular village....which makes it easy for La Poste.

Or have I got that wrong ?

Chessie
[/quote]

The remaining three numbers are certainly not the identifier of a hamlet.  For example, round here we are near Villefranche de Rouergue which is 12200, but that post code takes in the town itself and 50 communes all around the town, obviously the village or hamlet name is also a key part of the address.  Put a French post code into Michelin to see the variety of communes that one post code can have.

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[quote user="chessie"]
I had always thought that the 'code' as such is split - the first 2 numbers are the Department number, and the remaining 3 numbers are the number of a particular village....which makes it easy for Le Poste.
[/quote]

Yes the first two numbers are the deparment, but the the last three can cover several villages, ours covers 15 villages and several thousand inhabitants.

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Clair - your postie must be a genuis !!!

As for all the other info - well - ROFL.  I'm just a naive little soul who believes what peoples tell me.    Really thought our village number was unique for our village - what do I know !!!

I am surprised that Napoleon hadn't got round to numbering every single village, hamlet, commune in every Department - he must have got side-tracked somewhere or another.   But very interesting comments - you live and learn  !!!!

It would seem that the little yellow van drivers do an excellent job out here, coping with houses with no names, identical owners names for 3 different houses, and dealing with all the 'unexpected'  hazards on French rural roads.

Happy days.

Regards - Chessie

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Communes do indeed have their own individual five-digit codes, starting with the département number. See http://www.insee.fr/fr/methodes/nomenclatures/cog/ It's down to INSEE rather than Napoleon though.

But they are different from the post code. For instance, our post code is 50640, which covers several communes, but the INSEE code number for the commune is 50179.

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[quote user="chessie"]
I am surprised that Napoleon hadn't got round to numbering every single village, hamlet, commune in every Department - he must have got side-tracked somewhere or another.  [/quote]

No but he did produce a map showing every parcel of land and a great big book showing who owned it, all cross referenced---------- Le Plan Cadestral----

For Rural areas this is straight forward, By entering the Post code and lieu dit name,  sometimes only one house, into the cadastral search engine the exact location is displayed..As the add says "Simple?"

For you town dwellers Numbers and street names seem the order of the day.

As for little signs the lieu-dit is normally shown on white plaques with a black arrow, hidden in an ancient bush.....there's an opening for a woolyperson somewhere.

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[quote user="Ron Avery"]

[quote user="J.Rs gone native"]I shall keep out of this one Cat and continue to remain bemused, perhaps putting Picardie and Sussex as my location is confusing.[/quote] 

 Not at all confusing its just your contradictory posts that are confusing[Www]

[/quote]

Then I apologise to you Ron.

I still remain bemused by your continued references to Crawley, asking me what the weather is like there etc, I have not lived or worked in or had any connection with the town since 1986.

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Ron, if you need any information about the current state of Crawley please ask. I have the dubious fortune to go near to there quite frequently, though I try to avoid the town itself as much as possible.

Not all lieu-dit identifying signs are white and black of course, other colours including yellow and blue are quite common. Some progressive communes have very snazzy blue ones with yellow lettering.

It's true too that our Les gets around a bit. There's a Les Thomas on our route to the ferry port. I've also seen a Les Bians, but luckily can't remember where that is.

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Thanks Will but I know it well, used to go there regularly in my sporting days, it used to be the home of Youmgman's ladders and one or two other companies that provided good sporting facilities for their workforces.

Still haven't worked out how you can have a UK postcode and postman in Picardie though[Www]  No wonder the post gets lost if the rounds are that big[:D]

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