Stop Sign - Sign Variants

Sign Variants

Although all English-speaking and many other countries use the word stop on stop signs, some jurisdictions use an equivalent word in their primary language instead of or in addition to it. Israel uses the image of a hand in a "stop" gesture.

In some Caribbean and South American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Uruguay and Venezuela), signs bear the legend pare ("stop" in Portuguese and Spanish). Mexico and Central American countries bear the legend alto ("halt") instead.

In Quebec, Canada, modern signs read either arrêt or stop, however it is not uncommon to see older signs containing both words in smaller lettering, with arrêt on top. Both stop and arrêt are considered valid French words and the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) notes that the use of "stop" on stop signs is attested in French since 1927. In practice, however, it can be empirically observed (for instance, with Google Street View) that "arrêt" predominates in French-speaking areas (i.e., most of the geographic extent of Québec), while "stop" can be found in majority English-speaking areas such as Montreal's West Island suburbs. At the time of the debates surrounding the adoption of the Charter of the French Language ("Bill 101") in 1977, the usage of "stop" on the older dual-word signs was considered to be English and therefore controversial; some signs were occasionally vandalized with red spray paint to turn the word stop into "101". However, it was later officially determined by the OQLF that "stop" is a valid French word in this context, and the older dual arrêt + stop usage is therefore not considered bilingual but merely redundant and therefore deprecated (à éviter). All newly installed signs thus use either one word or the other, but not both.

The province of New Brunswick has bilingual stop arrêt in English-speaking areas. Acadian regions of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island also have bilingual signs. On First Nations or Inuit territories, stop signs sometimes use the local aboriginal language in addition to or instead of English and/or French. Other parts of Canada use stop.

Arabic-speaking countries use قف qif

China uses 停 tíng

Japan uses 止まれ tomare

Korea uses 정지 jeongji

Malaysia uses berhenti

Mongolia uses ЗОГС

Thailand uses หยุด yùd

Turkey uses dur

Almost all of Europe, including e.g. France, Greece, Russia, Serbia and Spain (not Turkey), use "STOP" in latin letters.

The white legend/red field appearance is usually the same. Exceptions include Japan, which uses an inverted solid red triangle; and Zimbabwe, which uses a disc bearing a black cross.