page_title: Control city
section_title: Europe
hierarchical_section_title: Control city / Europe
caption_attribution_description: Control city sign near Warsaw, Poland
context_page_description: A control city is a city, locality, or other location posted on a series of traffic signs along a particular stretch of road indicating destinations on that route. Together with route numbers and cardinal directions, these focal points aid the motorist navigating along a highway system. Such cities appear on signs at junctions to indicate where the intersecting road goes and where the road ahead goes. They are also typically used on distance signs.
  Different countries have different practices as far as focal points on directional signs are concerned, and the term control city is not used globally. Where a sign contains a number of destinations for a particular direction, not all of those destinations may be considered a control city. In most countries, control cities are perceived to be the destinations on signs that aid longer-distance traffic, as opposed to local traffic. Accordingly, local destinations on a sign, which only appear incidentally, would in a number of countries not be considered control cities.
  While a control city may not appear on the signs of every single junction, the control city would at least appear on major junctions.
context_section_description: Unlike in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, roads in Continental Europe are not signed with directional banners (east, west, north, and south). The motorist accordingly needs to rely on the combination of the control city and the route number as navigation tools. Possibly as a result of this, control cities (whatever they are called) tend to feature rather prominently on the route signs of European countries when compared to signage in North America. Routes tend to feature more signs that contain information for the route forward and those signs often contain a larger number of focal points.
  In this context, and bearing in mind that in Europe every country has its own style of signposting, the term control city is not always in use, but most countries use concepts that have a similar role to that of a control city in North America.
  Some, but not all, countries like Poland and Switzerland label border crossings and foreign cities as control cities with a European abbreviation symbol (D for Germany, NL for the Netherlands, UA for the Ukraine etc.).
  The border crossing control city in Poland would have priority over other towns along the way even if the signposted border village/town is smaller than many towns along the way.
caption: Distance sign showing the distance to the control cities on the A2 autostrada of Konin, Poznań, Łódź and the German-Polish border crossing of Świecko.
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