Aren't there road signs that show populations of towns in the UK?

Aren't there road signs that show populations of towns in the UK?

10/29/2018 6:00:01 PM

In the UK, we have no local registration of one’s residence. You can move somewhere and the only thing the council knows about a change in residence, is one name on the council tax bill, a new kid in a school, new benefit claim, etc. There is no need to register other family members or lodgers.

The only reasonably reliable count of population is every 10 years when the census is taken. The rest of the time, it would be a costly hassle for councils to maintain such a sign.

4/18/2018 8:51:21 AM

As others have said, town signs in the UK don’t have the population on. What they do quite often have, however, is “twinned with”, showing the other towns and cities they are partnered with for cultural exchange reasons – as shown on the bottom of the Trowbridge sign in @Dragon’s post

4/17/2018 4:51:11 PM

At least one existed: one was erected in Trowbridge in 1999, and then replaced later. But they are exceedingly rare, and I’m not entirely sure that these count as ‘road signs’.

Sign: "Trowbridge -- Welcome to the County Town of Wiltshire -- 45m above sea level -- Population 27,500 (and more information)

Sign: "Trowbridge -- Welcome to the County Town of Wiltshire -- 45m above sea level -- Population 35,000 (and more information)

Source: Geograph

4/17/2018 4:35:36 PM

You didn’t miss them – they don’t exist here, or indeed almost anywhere outside of the USA as far as I’ve seen.

Also, our councils can hardly manage to fill potholes, posting optional factoids on signs is just extravagance.

4/17/2018 2:37:14 PM

I would say, as the UK is a highly compact country with everything close together. It would be impossible for those signs to exist because the constant changes within population when moving between two towns can take under an hour.

Also, this is kinda an American custom. Which English people would never want to adopt (we feel useless enough, you don’t have to remind us how many people we have to compete with) .

4/17/2018 2:13:42 PM

According to a brief google search (and from personally visiting several countries on different continents), the population number on the welcome sign seems to be a North American custom. I’ve never seen this anywhere else.

So, to answer your question, there most likely are no such signs, you didn’t miss them.

4/17/2018 1:55:15 PM

I have lived in five countries including the UK and never seen such a sign in real life. I only know them from American movies, where I’ve always semi-felt they were some sort of Wild West joke or something, like when they reduce the number by one after a lynching. I can’t conceive of why the population would be posted outside a town, rather than its GDP, area in hectares, name of its mayor, or some other random datum.

4/18/2018 8:06:52 AM

  1. Most villages/towns/cities have signs saying “Welcome to {name of village/town/city}“, but they (almost exclusively) don’t have populations on them in the UK.

  2. When you drive along motorways, like the M4, you don’t go into any villages/towns/ cities, so you don’t see the “Welcome to {name of village/town/city}” signs. You do see “Welcome to {name of county}” though.

  3. London, UK, possibly doesn’t have these signs anyway – London’s too big. I expected to find signs to the boroughs and/or the towns and villages that have been absorbed into Greater London, but I didn’t find anything for “Welcome to Westminster sign” on google images, or for Hackney or Brixton either. Possibly only smaller towns and villages bother with the signs. I did find this for Tolworth, an area of the Kingston-upon-Thames borough.

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

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Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

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