carrer

Carrer is the Catalan word for street, referring to a public urban passage that forms part of the road network in towns and cities. It is used in addresses, signage, and place names, and appears in the structure of Catalan street names, typically after the preposition de or del, as in Carrer de la Universitat or Carrer del Sol. The plural is carrers.

The term is widespread in Catalan-speaking regions, including Catalonia, the Valencian Community (where Valencian is closely related to Catalan), the Balearic Islands, the Aran Valley, and Andorra, where Catalan is the official language. In these areas, streets are commonly labeled with the word carrer followed by a descriptive or commemorative name.

Linguistically, carrer is a basic component of the Catalan urban lexicon, distinguishing street-level infrastructure from other types of roadways or public spaces such as passages or squares. In multilingual contexts, it is often translated as “street” in English or as “calle” in Spanish, though exact equivalents may vary by region and signage conventions. In toponymy, the word frequently appears in historical and contemporary place names and can be part of municipal naming conventions.

Notes: Outside Catalan-speaking areas, carrer may appear as a surname or as part of international place names borrowed from Catalan. In everyday use within Catalan-speaking communities, it remains the standard term for a street and is essential to navigation and postal addressing.