License Plates Around the World

One of the things that I love about the Internet is it can take a ubiquitous item and make it suddenly very interesting by building up a huge collection. Like, say, license plates. You can see a huge collection of license plates -- including from bodies that I didn't realize even issued license plates -- at http://www.worldlicenseplates.com/ .

The site is framed. The main frame allows you to specify a region of the world. Do that and you'll get a list of countries/areas for that region. The areas in italics are no longer independent areas, but information on their plates are still available. Also on the front page is a link to license-plate-related topics, including information on collector's clubs, fake plates, a plate fact sheet, and a bibliography.

On the left of the page is a list of places and groups which issue plates, from Abaco (an island state in the Bahamas) to Zimbabwe. Click on a place and you'll get a series of example plates (many dated), information on the area itself, sometimes political status, sometimes links to related sites, and a note about the last page update. Sometimes there's even more information. The state of Texas, for example, has two pages of plates (a red grapefruit license plate?) with links for optional plates, American Indian plates, links related to license plates in Texas, and a link to buy Texas license plates. Oddly fascinating stuff! Recommended.

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