Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Road junction lists/Glossary

This is a glossary of the U.S. terms used in the exit list guide, intended to assist with globalization.

State

In the U.S., a state is the primary political subdivision. States maintain all roads that pass through them and are fairly large. The UK equivalent of this would probably be England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. In Canada, they are called provinces and in Mexico they are called estados (Spanish for state). Germany has Bundesländer. States in the U.S. arose as 13 individual colonies that banded together in 1787 to form one nation, comprised of the original 13 states.

District of Columbia

The District of Columbia is a federal district with an overlaid municipal government. It is not part of any state. See capital districts and territories for similar entities in other countries.

Independent city

A city not part of any county. For example, Carson City, Nevada.

County

A county is a subdivision of a state. The term county is used in 48 states, with Louisiana using parish and Alaska using borough. The number of counties in a state varies; Texas has 254, Oklahoma has 77, Delaware has three. The equivalent in Canada are counties or regions. A NUTS-3 region would be the closest European Union equivalent.

#

Abbreviation for Number. (Perhaps № would work better for this purpose?) In many countries, exits are numbered for the motorist's convenience.

Shields

In the U.S., a distinctive emblem (such as ) is used as a symbol of the road. Most of the time the highway has no other identifying marks. The shield system is used throughout North America and even in some other countries like Germany, China, and Taiwan. Many nations, especially in Europe, do not use shields, but instead simply use colored rectangles with the road number to represent the road. These can be used for when "shield" is given (, ).

Concurrency

See concurrency (road). Concurrencies are sometimes used in the UK.