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Streets of Australia

Taking a look at the most common street names across the nation


Using a data set of addresses across Australia, we are able to see which street names are most common. Here are the top street names, based on number of postcodes where a street with that name occurs.
'George Street' is the most common street name, found in 503 postcodes, followed by 'William Street' and 'King Street'.
Disregarding the street type ('street', 'road' etc.) allows us to group by the actual name given to a street. Each name has been grouped and coloured to show some of the regular themes in street names.
Doing this sees location-based names such as 'Park' and 'Railway' jump up. It also exposes the top theme of royal-related names and words in our street names.
Breaking the data down by state, we begin to see interesting regional trends in what streets are named for.
Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania and Queensland are dominated by royal related street names. Western Australia on the other hand tends to have streets named after non-royal figures, such as Sir John Forrest, their first premier. South Australia likes to name its streets after points on the compass.
We can also look at the most common types of streets. The map below is coloured by the most common street type, such as 'road' or 'place', showing where in Australia certain types of streets are more common.
Major cities like Sydney are dominated by "streets", while more rural areas tend to abound in "roads".