Geography of Montreal - Street Directions

Street Directions

One quirk of common Montreal parlance is that directions (north, south, east, and west) along the street grid are sharply skewed relative to the actual compass directions. The St. Lawrence River is taken as flowing west to east (even though it flows north or northeast past the island), so that directions along streets parallel to the river are referred to as "west" and "east," and those along streets perpendicular to the river, "north" and "south." In much of Montreal, "north" is actually northwest, and in some areas such as Verdun and Pointe-aux-Trembles it is actually due west. "Montreal directions" are used in naming street addresses and describing bus routes, among other things. As a result of this discrepancy, Montreal has been called "the only city where the sun sets in the north."

Further folk naming customs refer to "up" and "down," "up" being towards Mount Royal and "down" being towards the St. Lawrence, but the system can be confused on the north side of the mountain (whether "up" means uphill, i.e. Montreal "south," or towards Montreal "north" as it does downtown).

Streets are named "Ouest" or "Est" when they cross Saint Laurent Boulevard. Street numbers rise eastward and westward from Saint Laurent Boulevard, and northward from the St. Lawrence River and the Lachine Canal. (A few streets in Le Sud-Ouest borough, such as rue Charlevoix, cross the Lachine Canal. In those cases, the addresses south of the Lachine Canal have an "0" prefixed to their street numbers.)