Road names in rural areas

[Meesh-Ecuador]

I am now living in rural Ecuador. It’s a small tourist town. With todays’s connected world, it’s very important to small businesses to be able to add or correct places, roads, etc. so visitors can find their way around safely. Unfortunately, many many roads in rural areas have no official names, and consequently places have no “proper” street address. this presents a difficulty in getting places listed correctly on Google Maps.

Even when roads have no official name, locally they are usually referred to by where they head, or which two locations they are between. IE the road between Puyo and Macas is called “Vía Puyo-Macas”, the closest English equivalent would be literally “the way between Puyo & Macas” or “The Puyo - Macas road”. Other examples are “Vía Pununo” or “Vía a Pununo”, in English “Pununo Road” or “road to Pununo”.

Would it be considered appropriate to label “unnamed roads” with these designators, if that is how they are referred to locally? Because half of Ecuador is covered with “unnamed roads”, which is really not useful.

Thanks,

Michael

[YerlanB]

@Meesh-Ecuador Hi! I understand you and agree with you. People would benefit much from all the roads being named.

But I don’t think that Google moderators will accept your name edits if you’ll start naming them how you like or what the “folks” names they have.

Maybe it would be better to address local autrhorities to name roads? You could start a petition or publicly ask your mayor to help name all the roads. Then it will be easier to get approvals from Google moderators.

By the way, people at Road Mapper can’t name roads or decide where to draw them at will…

[ErmesT]

Hi @Meesh-Ecuador Welcome in Local Guides Connect

Thank you for asking about road naming. A missing name is indeed an issue that happen in many parts of the world, but the solution is not to add names that are not visible in an Official Maps, and Google Maps cannot accept that kind of “locally used” names if they are not in a Governative map.

The lack of addresses is the reason why the “Plus Codes” program has been developed. In Google Maps you can easily find, and share, a Plus Code instead of a Street/Number Address.

With the plus Code, just to give you an example, it is possible to locate the Capilla De La Comuna, even if the road has no name

You can learn more about using Plus Codes here: Find & share a location using Plus Codes

I also suggest you a visit to their website: https://maps.google.com/pluscodes/

Plus Codes: Addresses for Everyone

In addition, as this is your first post in the Community, I would like to give you some more indication about Local Guides Connect.

Your guide to Connect" is the introductory Guide of the community. In there you will find all the necessary information to know how to better contribute in the community

Do you have a doubt about how to do something? The Help desk is here for you,with a long list of post with detailed indications on how to post.

How to choose a topic for your Connect post will help you to find what is the better place to post according to what you want to share / ask.

In this specific case, as you wrote in a board that is related to Road Mapper (that is a specific program for mapping roads in predefined areas) I will ask to @Bobiisha to move your post in the appropriate section (Hos Tos). In this way your question will be more visible and you may be able to receive more tips from the other members of the community.

You may also take this opportunity to explore the other sections of Connect, and to know more about other passionate Local Guides like you

[Bobiisha]

Hi @Meesh-Ecuador ,

Thanks for reaching out to us!

What @ErmesT and @YerlanB answered is correct. Since @ErmesT provided more information on your query, I will mark it as a solution for a better visibility in case someone else has a similar doubt. I will also move your post to our How-tos board, where Local Guides ask questions and express their doubts. More information on Connect’s labels is available here.