Street system of Denver

The street system of Denver, Colorado reflects the early history and original geography and present day layout of the City and County of Denver, Colorado.

The oldest part of Denver, now the neighborhoods of Auraria Campus, LoDo, much of downtown, and Five Points, is laid out on a grid plan that is oriented diagonal to the four cardinal directions. The rest of the city, including the eastern part of downtown, is laid out primarily on a grid oriented to the cardinal directions. In this larger grid, from east to west, there are generally 16 city blocks per mile, except between Zuni Street and Lowell Boulevard in west Denver. From north to south, there are typically eight blocks per mile, although there are many areas with more blocks per mile. Addresses follow a decimal system, with addresses advancing by one hundred at each cross street.

Some major arterial roads, such as Leetsdale Drive and South Santa Fe Drive, fall outside this pattern and run diagonally through the city. These roads generally originated as county roads or other major routes used by early settlers. The names of many of these roads change as they wind through the grid, following the name officially designated for a road in that area. Interstate highways do not follow the grid plan.

Modern Denver has two grids. One is laid out diagonal with respect to the four cardinal directions and is found on Auraria Campus, downtown, and northeast of downtown into the Five Points neighborhood. Most of the rest of the city's streets, as well as many of those of the surrounding suburbs, are laid out in an east–west/north–south pattern. These two grids result from early land development in the area.

The first streets in Denver were platted in what was then the town of Auraria, founded in 1858; it was the first permanent settlement of Europeans in Colorado, which was then part of the Kansas Territory. The streets were laid out parallel to the south bank of Cherry Creek near its confluence with the South Platte River, with perpendicular cross streets. Because they followed the path of a natural body of water, these streets were diagonal to the four cardinal directions.

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