The Sexist Streets of the World

189 roads in Zurich are named after famous individuals. Of the 189 roads in the city named after people 134 (or over 70%) are named for men. Only 55 streets in Zurich are named for women. You can explore for yourself all the streets named for people in Zurich on the EqualStreetNames.Zurich interactive map. 

Zurich is of course not the only city which likes to ignore women when giving names to roads. The EqualStreetNames project has now analyzed the inequality in street names in 41 cities around the world. This list includes San Francisco, Madrid, Brussels, and Berlin. If your city is not yet on the list you can remedy this by creating your own street name map using the EqualStreetNames City Template.

The Geochicas project has also been at the forefront of efforts around the world to reveal the under-representation of women in place-names. Their Las Calles de las Mujeres is an interactive map which reveals all the streets named for men and women in a number of cities in Spain, Italy, Argentina, Mexico, Bolivia, Cuba, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. 

Streetonomics has also created a series of interactive maps which allow you to explore and discover more about the people who have streets named after them in New York, Paris, Vienna and London. On these four interactive city maps all the streets which have been named for individuals are shown using different colors. You can click on any street on a city map to view who the street was named for and learn more about who that person was.

The Streetonomics individual maps for each city include a number of filters which allow you to explore which streets in the city have been named for men and which have been named for women. You can also explore which streets have been named for people from different periods in history, from different occupations, and by country of origin.

A number of other interactive mapping projects have also explored the sexist culture of naming streets in cities around the world:  

Street Names in Vienna visualizes all the streets named for men and women in the Austrian capital.
From Pythagoras to Amalia analyzes 5,400 Amsterdam street names 
Recognizing Women with Canadian Place Names shows 500 locations in Canada named for women
Mapping Diversity mapping the male and female street names of Italy