License Plates

[SRBIJA]

I though I'd make one thread for this Share the license plates of your countries, their history, comment on your favourite and least favourite ones.

Serbian vehicle license plate codes consist of a two-letter region code, followed by three-digit numeric and a two-letter alpha license code, separated by a hyphen (e.g., BG 123-AA).The region code and the license code are separated by the shield of Serbia and a Cyrillic letter combination for the region below. A blue field is placed along the left side edge, as in European Union countries, bearing the international country code for Serbia-SRB.The standard license plate dimensions are 520.5 × 112.9 mm.

 

[DanielLuis]

Re: European license plates

EU countries have the same plate. The only difference is obviously that every country has it's own initials in the plate. Portugal is P.

 

[seb89]

Re: European license plates

EU countries have the same plate. The only difference is obviously that every country has it's own initials in the plate. Portugal is P.

Not really. Belgium plates aren't black and white, but red and white. I like that.

 

[SRBIJA]

Re: European license plates

EU countries have the same plate. The only difference is obviously that every country has it's own initials in the plate. Portugal is P.

But they all have different font, design or even size and color.

 

[toinou03]

Re: European license plates

In fact, it's only in Southern countries. Europe forced us to change our license plate. Then we have copied the new Italian one...

Before, we used to have plates with...

A number (between 2 and 4 numbers) Letters (2 or 3) And the number of the department.

At begining, the first plate was 11A01 or 11A02... Depends on the department. But then, the advancing of the numbers of the plate depended on the number of inhabitants of the departments. Biggest like 75, 92, 93, 94, 13, 59... had 3 letters and were close to advance to 4 letters, hence with enormous plates, while smallest departments like 48, 04, 05, 23, 52... took many time to advance to the following letter ! So it was a major problem...

Now we have 2 letters - 3 numbers - 2 letters, put by hazzard, through the whole France... Which is null...

In fact, before, you could see from far away where the driver came from... Now, it's more difficult...
As people refused to loose the number of department, now it features on the right of the plate, with the flags of region ! But some people trick the plate and put other flags, like flags of ancient provinces or regional logos, and so on...

But the thing is that you can choose which department you want... And now, the plates remain the same on the vehicle for ever, whereas you had to change your plate everytime you moved to another department... which complicated everything...

Before the plates were white on the front and yellow on the back, and now they are all white !

Overseas territories have different plates, except the 5 departments, Guyane, Guadeloupe, Martinique, La Réunion & Mayotte.

 

[Venage]

Re: European license plates

Well, the German ones are pretty much the same as the ones of every other European country. The first two letters signify your city (most of the time), the second pair of letters can be chosen freely whereas the numbers are random. The icon on the upper side signifies the date of your last vehicle inspection. The icon on the bottom represents one of the 16 Bundesländer like Bavaria or Saxony.

 

[DanielLuis]

Re: European license plates

I understand the different thingies that some countries have then. Portugal doesn't have these designs like France and Germany simply because we don't have states or admnistrative regions like that. We have districts, but they don't each have their own government.

 

[nofuxCZ]

Re: European license plates

The letter in the current car plates represent one of the 14 regions here, the numbers are random

 

[Gera11]

Re: European license plates

That's an example. Instead of BN can be one of the 41+B(which is for Bucharest, capital) counties abbreviation(CT,SV,OT etc)

 

[SRBIJA]

Re: European license plates

That's an example. Instead of BN can be one of the 41+B(which is for Bucharest, capital) counties abbreviation(CT,SV,OT etc)

Is it obligatoty to have these European ones? Because every year in Greece I see plates like this:

Is it just a matter of choice or these ones will have to be replaced soon?

 

[Gera11]

Re: European license plates

Is it just a matter of choice or these ones will have to be replaced soon?

Those plates were before we joined EU and is not mandatory to change them. When they will buy a new car they will get a EU symbol on them instead of romanian flag

 

[SRBIJA]

Re: European license plates

Thanks for the explanation


BTW Im posting the microstates' ones,realy interesting.

 

[seb89]

Re: European license plates

Here's Belgium. I think we have a quite unique license plate .

First one is the old one, second one is the new 'European' one . We added the "1" because there weren't enough combinations anymore. There are no references where you are from in the Belgian plates. Licence plates beginning with a "P" are for politicians, "a" for memebers of the assembly, "O" for Oldtimers, "ZZ" for test drives, "HOF" for royals,...

This is for people who are affiliated to the EU and live in Belgium:

This is for diplomats:

This is for car dealers:

 

[Venage]

Re: European license plates

You Belgians seem to like it colourful for sure

 

[MyHeartIsYours]

Re: European license plates


United Kingdom

Wish they could put the Union Flag on it somewhere Also I dont get why it's "GB" instead of "UK"?

 

[Charly]

Re: European license plates

It is very common to see French Italian Spanish Dutch Belgian car number plates and sometime Portugese Swiss German and British car numberplates in Morocco.

For example yesterday we were at the Medina and the massive car park outside I always look at the numberplates and I saw many French Dutch Belgian and Italian numberplates and even 1 from Luxembourg.

If you ever driving in Spain lets say near Madrid or Costa Del Sol etc and you saw an car numberplates that is foreign or even a Spanish numberplates but the cat has a trailer and its roof and trailer is filled with lots of luggage etc or even the car itself its easy to tell they are Moroccan/Going to Morocco ;p

Once we were in Pourtsmouth and there was a van with UK numberplate but the windows of the van was covered with Raja Casablanca flags etc and it was so easy to tell they were Motoccan since Raja Casablanca is a Moroccan football team I will post some pictures I took

 

[seb89]

Re: European license plates

^Exactly . Those cars are so packed with stuff, I wonder they don't break in two . It's dangerous for other drivers too.

Well, you also know, they're driving to Morocco if you see the passengers or driver of course .

 

[Charly]

Re: European license plates

^Exactly . Those cars are so packed with stuff, I wonder they don't break in two . It's dangerous for other drivers too.

Well, you also know, they're driving to Morocco if you see the passengers or driver of course .

I don't have to see that it's soo easy to tell

But here are some pics I took:

Spanish Numberplate

Ukrainian Numberplate when I was in Ukraine

The Swiss Numberplate I took in Spain at the port for the boat to Morocco

I don't this is German nor Austrian but I took this at a BBQ place near Marrakech

Italian on the Move

The new french Numberplate

And finally the Polish Numberplate which I found in my town in England

 

[Morty]

Re: European license plates

This might be my new favorite thread.

I started writing down license plates when I was very young, in fact, that's pretty much how I learned to write. And I stuck with this hobby until my mid 20s, when it unfortunately occurred to me that it was a rather pointless way to spend so much time. I still have my list of license plates tho, and there are thousands of them, with the majority being German (we get a lot of German tourists in Norway). I ignored Sweden, Denmark and Finland tho, and other popular countries were The Netherlands and the Czech Republic.

Found some posts I want to reply too tho:

I don't this is German nor Austrian but I took this at a BBQ place near Marrakech

German, this car is being exported to a different country.

United Kingdom

Wish they could put the Union Flag on it somewhere Also I dont get why it's "GB" instead of "UK"?

It wouldn't surprise me if you could buy an unofficial sticker with the flag to place over the EU sticker, considering the big business around selling number plates in the UK.
About GB vs UK, I'm not entirely sure, but I did some searching on Wikipedia. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but Great Britain is the name of the island with England, Wales and Scotland? If so, that might be why, because the islands around (Alderney GBA, Guernsey GBG, Jersey GBJ, Isle of Man GBM and Gibraltar GBZ) have their own country codes. It appears that, when it comes to vehicles, the official name is United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Northern Ireland). But why they chose GB instead of UK, I have no idea.

Well, the German ones are pretty much the same as the ones of every other European country. The first two letters signify your city (most of the time), the second pair of letters can be chosen freely whereas the numbers are random. The icon on the upper side signifies the date of your last vehicle inspection. The icon on the bottom represents one of the 16 Bundesländer like Bavaria or Saxony.

I just wanna fill in here, that German plates could also have 1 or 3 letters showing which city the car is registered in. Then, for the second set of letters, it's 1 or 2, and then 1 to 4 numbers at the end. Looks like the highest amount of letters and numbers in total is 8 (2+2+4 or 3+2+3), as I've never seen a 3-letter city with 4 numbers.

EU countries have the same plate. The only difference is obviously that every country has it's own initials in the plate. Portugal is P.

Actually, they all have different plates. The only thing they have in common is the EU sticker in front of the plate (with their initials beneath the EU stars). That being said, also some non-EU European countries have this sticker, but usually with their own flag instead of the EU stars. Norway is one of them. Here's a page where you can see different types of Norwegian plates (and plates from pretty much the entire world): Olav's Norwegian license plates - Number plates of Norway

 

[Yamarus]

Re: European license plates

In Belgium we get to see plenty of license plates from all over Europe, especially on all those trucks headed to and coming from Antwerp, but I think I've never seen a Norwegian license plate!