Why it looks like this

Kyoto has one of the oldest planned grids still in daily use. Founded in 794 as Heian-kyō, the imperial capital was laid out as a rectangle of right-angled streets, copied from Chang'an, the capital of Tang-dynasty China — with the palace in the north and numbered avenues (First to Tenth) running south.

Twelve centuries of rebuilding have softened the edges, but the bones are still there: people in Kyoto still give directions using the old grid's crossings.