This article in our article series Streets & Squares is about Houston, the most populous city of Texas, founded by land investors on August 30, 1836, and incorporated as a city the following year. It is named after General Sam Houston, who was also president of the Republic of Texas, having won Texas’s independence from Mexico. Let’s see who are the people behind the eponymous street signs of Houston! As always in Streets & Squares, clicking on the address links leads you to Google Maps, and clicking on the names to the person’s Wikipedia page. Continue reading

The city we go this time in Streets & Squares is Basel, a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine. The official language of Basel is German - the Swiss variety of Standard German. As always, clicking on the address links leads you to Google Maps, and clicking on the names to the person’s Wikipedia page. Achilles Bischoff-Strasse - Achilles Bishoff (1795-1867) was a politician born in Basel, Swiss Confederacy. Continue reading

Independence Square in Kyiv, Ukraine The city we go to this time in Streets & Squares is Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. Previously also known by its Russian name Kiev, situated in the north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. A city that at the moment is the center of attention of the whole world. As always, clicking on the address links leads you to Google Maps, and clicking on the names to the person’s Wikipedia page. Continue reading

This time in our article series Streets & Squares we will go to Rovaniemi, a city in northern Finland - a polar circle city as it is situated on the 66th degree of latitude, or more precisely about 6 kilometres south of the Arctic Circle. The Sami name for the city include Ruávinj_a_rgâ, Roavvenjárga, Roavenjárga, and Ruäʹvnjargg. As always in Streets & Squares, clicking on the address links leads you to Google Maps, and clicking on the names to the person’s Wikipedia page. Continue reading

Once in a while we visit here in Streets & Squares some smaller city anywhere in the world. This time it will be Missoula in the mountaineous state of Montana, United States. Missoula was founded in 1860 as Hellgate Trading Post while still part of Washington Territory. By 1866, the settlement had moved upstream 5 miles east, and been renamed Missoula Mills, later shortened to Missoula. The city is divided by Clark Fork River. Continue reading

A good idea to do in Loviisa: walk the Myllyharju nature trail, and climb the three-storey Kukkukivi sightseeing tower (1906). This time Streets and Squares visits Loviisa, a tiny, picturesque town on the southern coast of Finland some 90 km east of Helsinki. It is a bilingual city (Finnish & Swedish), and was actually known until 1752 as Degerby. Its current name it received from the Swedish king Adolf Fredrik, who so liked the city when he was visiting there that year that he named it after his wife, Queen Lovisa Ulrika. Continue reading

Jersey City seen from Ellis Island. Picture credit: Pavel Kuritsyn This time Streets & Squares goes to Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey, USA. Jersey City is the second-most populous city of New Jersey, after Newark. It was incorporated as a city in February 1838. As always, clicking on the addresses will open Google Maps for you, and clicking on the names will (usually) lead to the person’s Wikipedia page. After each address there is usually also a link to Google’s street view which takes you straight to somewhere along that street. Continue reading

Modern Moscow with its business center The city we go this time in Streets & Squares is Moscow, the capital of Russia, first documented in 1147. From the times of Tsardom of Russia it has evolved into a very modern city, the home of some 20 million people in the metropolitan area. Vocabulary: most мост (bridge), park парк (park), pereulok переу́лок (lane), proezd проезд (passage, thoroughfare), prospekt проспект (avenue), sad сад (garden), ulitsa улица (street). Continue reading

This time Streets & Squares goes to Den Haag, or The Hague as it is called in English. It is the third-largest city in the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The Hague was first mentioned as Die Haghe in 1242, and in the 15th century the name des Graven hage (The Count’s Wood) came into use. The spelling “’s-Gravenhage” was officially used for the city from the 17th century onward. Today, this name is only used in certain official documents. Continue reading

As you may know, our article series Streets and Squares was created to provide interesting background information on street signs around the world. It is a fun way to learn about the history and culture of the cities you visit or even live in! This time we visit Montreal, the most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1642 as Ville-Marie (City of Mary), it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-peaked hill in the heart of the city. Continue reading

Hassan II Mosque on the Atlantic coast As you may know, our article series Streets and Squares was created to provide some interesting background information on street signs around the world. It is a fun way to learn about the history and culture of the cities you visit or even live in! This time we will visit Casablanca, the largest city of Morocco. Not the capital though for that is Rabat. Continue reading

This time we head for Sigtuna in our article series Streets & Squares. A small town northwest of Stockholm which became the capital of the Swedes during the 970s. King Eric the Victorious, the founder of Sigtuna, lived there as did many kings after him, so Sigtuna remained an important town. It did that for almost 300 years until Stockholm took over as the number one city in Sweden. These days it is a nice place to visit for both domestic and foreign tourists with its long history and idyllic sites. Continue reading

We head in Streets & Squares this time to a slightly smaller city or shall we say town. That is, to Largo, the third largest city - after Clearwater and St. Petersburg - in Pinellas County, Florida. As well as the fourth largest in the Tampa Bay area. Largo was incorporated as a town in 1905. And yes, it is not to be confused with Key Largo, also in Florida. Continue reading

In compliance with the voting results where you could choose between Barcelona, Casablanca and Visby, we now head in Streets & Squares to Barcelona - the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, and also the second most populous municipality of Spain. As always in Streets & Squares, clicking on the address links leads you to Google Maps, and clicking on the names to the person’s Wikipedia page. Continue reading

We head in Streets & Squares this time to Wellington, Te Whanganui-a-Tara in Maori language. The capital city of New Zealand, located at the south-western tip of the North Island, which is the more populous one of the two large islands of New Zealand. On January 22nd in 1840, British colonists reached New Zealand, officially founding Wellington. As always in Streets & Squares, clicking on the address links leads you to Google Maps, and clicking on the names to the person’s Wikipedia page. Continue reading

Take part in our very first poll - one of many - and tell us which city You would like to read about in the April edition of Streets & Squares! You have time to answer till the 1st of April. Streets & Squares is always published on the 20th, but this time you have a chance to influence which city it will be out of the three alternatives presented here. Continue reading

Google Street View car in action in Helsinki, Finland Google’s Street View is a most wonderful tool for anyone who loves maps and travelling - which comprises if not most then at least millions of us! You get by fine with Google Maps alone, but the Street View really enhances the experience. The article series Streets & Squares here in Journeys of Life has so far only had links to Google Maps, but we are gradually adding also the Street View feature in all of the cities and towns that we present in the series. Continue reading

A view from Hallgrimskirkja towards Skólavörðurstígur This is part in the article series Streets and Squares that provide some interesting background information on street signs around the world. A fun way to learn about the history and culture of the cities you visit or even live in! This time we go to Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, founded in 1785. We don’t find many eponymous streets in Reykjavik, at least not ones named after people. Continue reading

National Mall in Washington D,C. Photo credit: Matti Blume This time in Streets and Squares the capital of the United States of America, and the place that is all over the news this inauguration day: Washington D.C. Many of the streets in central Washington D.C. are state names, so we skip them as we are only looking for people here. We also look at the many parks of Washington D.C. And as always, clicking on the address links leads you to Google Maps, and clicking on the names usually to the person’s Wikipedia page. Continue reading

Time to have a city from South America here in Streets and Squares. Let’s have a look at Buenos Aires, the capital and the largest city of Argentina. As always, clicking on the addresses will open Google Maps for you, and clicking on the names will (usually) lead to the person’s Wikipedia page. AVENIDA JUAN B. JUSTO - Juan B. Justo (1865-1928) was a physician, journalist and socialist politician from Buenos Aires. Continue reading