this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2026
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Probably works in rural areas. A friend of mine addressed a postcard to "the red house by the lake" in a small Norwegian town, and they were able to deliver it. Other people I know in Norway didn't have street names until there was a big push for naming all the streets around 2015 or so. Prior to that they just used the name of the farm or skipped it entirely if their last name matched the farm.
None of these examples were from Iceland, but considering Iceland is even less populated than Norway, it seems plausible that drawing a map could work.
A friend of mine in Bergen once got a letter addressed to "Den store stygge blokken på Laksevåg" (The big ugly apartment building in Laksevåg), so it might work in urban areas as well.
Until there were two big ugly apartment buildings in Laksevåg.
Finland: um, that does not narrow it down at all.
Again in Finland, this is the root of most official names of places that are somewhat smaller than a village.
Honestly wouldn't normally narrow it down that much in Norway either, although most red buildings are barns and not houses. "The lake" is not a problem in Norway, most towns are in a glacier-carved valley with exactly one lake. There are small lakes in the mountains, but not in places which would usually receive mail. In this case, there just weren't a lot of houses right next to the lake for whatever reason.
This is the case in rural France as well. They have lieux dits, (named places) that are the name of a house or a conglomerate of houses.
However this isn't compatible with the online ordering/delivery economy, the postmen might know all lieux dits, and their inhabitants , but a delivery driver might not know. Therefore street names and house numbers are being assigned.