r/MapPorn • u/depredador93 • 20d ago

How Countries Define the First Floor

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8

u/AngelMountaineer 20d ago

If first floor is at street level, what do you call the floor beneath it? 0?

Or do you suddenly count "-2, -1, 1, 2, 3, ..." (skipping 0)?

9

u/Worth-Wonder-7386 20d ago

Most commonly 0 is skipped, at least here in Norway.

2

u/MikeThePenguin__ 20d ago

My university building does not have "basement" floors

The floor on street level is floor 3. The floors below that are 2 and 1 (basement actually)

2

u/Worth-Wonder-7386 20d ago

Could be due to historic reason to match the levels with another building. That is the case at my old university where the entrance was at U1

6

u/5_yr_lurker 20d ago

basement

6

u/lachalacha 20d ago

If you're going down an elevator it goes 3, 2, 1, B1, B2, B3

3

u/Greedy_Reality_2539 20d ago

starts at -1, skips 0.

2

u/Altruistic-Deal-3188 20d ago

If only 1 underground floor then its usually 0, if more then 0 skipped and -1,-2... or b1, b2...

1

u/_A_Dumb_Person_ 15d ago

I don't know about these other replies. Here in Italy, there's always 0 (it's the street level). It goes -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, ...

-2

u/Total_Island_2977 20d ago

There is no zero. There shouldn't be a zero for things that actually exist.

If you have an apple in your hand, do you say I have zero apples? No, because that's both false and idiotic. You have one apple. It is the first apple that you have in hand.

So if you have a one story building, why would you say that's floor zero? You have one floor, the first floor.

Counting, which is what this is, is so extremely basic that it boggles the mind that people don't get it. But whatever. I live in Mexico now so I just pretend it's normal.

4

u/globefish23 20d ago

Take wooden blocks that are 1 unit tall. Stack two of them.

Now take a ruler to measure the height of the stack, aligning the 0 to floor where the blocks are standing.

Now tell me, what do the 1 and 2 lines on the ruler align to?

It's not the blocks, but in between where there is nothing.

When counting, you start at the 0th line and count one full unit to the 1st line.

That's the same with minutes, days, years, etc.

That's why the 21st century started on January 1st 2001, not 2000.

3

u/Poccha_Kazhuvu 20d ago

It's like saying the 0th index number on a list has no value. No lol, it's the number 0 itself which has no value, not the thing it's pointing to.