113 Fun Facts About License Plate

Which country introduced the first vehicle registration plates, by an 1893 police ordinance?

France got there first: a Paris police ordinance of August 1893 made motorists carry a plate showing the owner's name and address, three years before Germany followed.

Which US state was the first to issue license plates itself, on September 1, 1903?

Massachusetts became the first state to issue its own plates on September 1, 1903; plate number 1 went to Frederick Tudor, and his descendants kept it for over a century.

Which state was first to require vehicle registration in 1901, initially just the owner's initials?

New York required vehicle registration from 1901, with owners making plates bearing their initials; numbers replaced initials in 1903, and the state only began issuing plates in 1910.

Which state has featured a bucking horse and rider on its plates continuously since 1936?

Wyoming put the bucking horse and rider on its 1936 plates after Secretary of State Lester Hunt picked a drawing by Denver artist Allen True; Hunt later said it showed no particular horse.

George Maynard was jailed for 15 days in the 1970s for taping over which motto on his plates?

Maynard, a Jehovah's Witness, taped over the 'Live Free or Die' motto on his plates and served 15 days in jail; the Supreme Court later ruled he could not be forced to display it.

Which state's license plates carry the slogan 'Show-Me State'?

Missouri plates carry the slogan 'Show-Me State'; the nickname is commonly traced to an 1899 speech by Congressman Willard Vandiver, who said, 'I am from Missouri, you have got to show me.'

Which state has issued the same gold-on-blue standard plate design since the late 1950s?

Delaware introduced its reflective gold-on-blue plate in 1958 and added 'The First State' four years later; it is also the only state that lets drivers have legal plates made privately, as replicas of its old porcelain tags.

In 2008, plate number 6 from the state famous for its low-digit plate market sold for about how much?

$675,000 bought tag number 6 because the state first handed out plates in numerical order, so a low digit marks one of its oldest motoring families; number 20 fetched $410,000 in 2018.

In the state where low-number plates are traded as status symbols, plate 1 is reserved for which official?

Tag 1 is reserved for the governor, with 2 and 3 going to the lieutenant governor and secretary of state; every number from 4 upward can be bought and sold.

As of 2014, how many US states used prison labor to make their license plates?

The federal government does too, which is why 'making license plates' became slang for serving a prison sentence.

Which of these states requires only a rear license plate on standard passenger cars?

Pennsylvania asks standard passenger cars for a rear plate only, yet still makes press photographers and state-owned cars carry one on the front as well; Maryland and California, by contrast, require both.

Which state stopped requiring front license plates on July 1, 2020?

Ohio stopped requiring front plates on July 1, 2020, a change projected to save $1.4 million a year; the State Highway Patrol had objected that the front plate helped it trace hit-skip drivers.

Which state's governor rejected 9,000 pairs of new plates in the early 1970s because the flag's stars were shown as dots?

Alaska's William Egan refused the plates, made for 1973, because the stars of the state flag were rendered as dots; never issued, they became common collectors' items.

Which state's plates carry the slogan 'Sportsman's Paradise'?

Louisiana's plates carry 'Sportsman's Paradise', first stamped on them in 1958 as 'Sportsmen's Paradise'; the state swapped it for 'Bayou State' in 1974, then brought it back within a few years.

Which state's standard license plate depicts Mount Rushmore?

South Dakota's plates have shown Mount Rushmore in some form since 1952; about 90 percent of the memorial was blasted out with dynamite by a crew of nearly 400 between 1927 and 1941.

'Greatest Snow on Earth' is a plate slogan of which state?

Utah adopted 'Greatest Snow on Earth' with its skier plate in 1985; when the plate was redrawn in 2007, three-time Olympian Heidi Voelker became the skier pictured on it.

'First in Flight' has appeared on which state's plates since 1982?

North Carolina has used 'First in Flight' since 1982 for the Wright brothers' 1903 flights at Kitty Hawk; the brothers' home state answers on its own plates with 'Birthplace of Aviation'.

Which slogan has appeared on Maine's license plates since 1936?

Vacationland first appeared on Maine's plates in 1936 and has survived every redesign since, including the red lobster plate of 1987 and the chickadee that replaced it in 1999.

Since 1954, Illinois plates have carried which slogan?

Illinois has printed 'Land of Lincoln' on its plates since 1954, though Abraham Lincoln was born in a Kentucky log cabin and raised partly in Indiana; he only arrived in Illinois at 21.

To conserve metal during World War II, Illinois made its 1943 plates from what material?

Illinois pressed its 1943 plates from fiberboard to save steel for the war effort, and kept making them that way through 1948, three years after the war had ended.

Which state's license plates spell out 'USA' after the state name?

New Mexico first added 'USA' after its name in 1969, dropped it in the mid-1970s and brought it back around 1988; today's plates read 'New Mexico USA'.

Most modern plates are made from which metal?

Aluminium is the usual metal for modern plates; many early ones were steel coated in porcelain, which soon proved too expensive to turn out in the numbers motorists needed.

Which vehicles were left out of the 1956 agreement that standardized North American plates at 6 by 12 inches?

Motorcycles were exempt when the US, Canada and Mexico agreed with carmakers on a 6-by-12-inch plate with standard mounting holes; bike plates were never standardized and mostly settled at 4 by 7 inches.

Which part of Canada has issued polar-bear-shaped plates since 1970?

The Northwest Territories introduced its polar-bear-shaped plate in 1970 to mark the territory's centennial, and the bear outline is now a registered trademark.

Which state's green license plates are the only ones in the US with the number pressed in rather than raised?

Vermont makes its plates in reverse: a rectangle is raised from the sheet, the characters are pressed back down into it, and green paint is rolled across the raised face.

Which California city piloted battery-powered digital license plates in 2018?

Sacramento was the test city when California began piloting digital plates in 2018; the number shows on an electronic-paper screen, the kind used in e-readers, that can change what it displays.

In a 2007 survey, which state had vanity plates on the highest share of its vehicles, about one in six?

Virginia led the 2007 survey with vanity plates on about 16% of its vehicles, helped by a fee of just $10 a year; Illinois had the largest total, nearly 1.3 million, despite charging $78.

Which state's plates still picture the Old Man of the Mountain, a rock profile that collapsed in 2003?

New Hampshire has kept the Old Man of the Mountain on its standard plate since 1999, even though the granite profile fell from its perch on Cannon Mountain on May 3, 2003.

Which message on a Los Angeles driver's vanity tag brought him around 2,500 parking tickets in 1979?

Robert Barbour's 'NO PLATE' vanity plate matched what officers wrote on tickets for cars without plates, so about 2,500 Los Angeles citations were mailed to him in 1979.

Which state passed a 2015 law removing most censorship from its vanity plate program?

Maine's 2015 law stripped the Secretary of State of the power to reject offensive vanity plates, and a wave of vulgar plates followed until the legislature restored review in 2021.

Which phrase has appeared on standard Washington, D.C. plates since November 2000?

'Taxation Without Representation' went on D.C. plates in November 2000, protesting that residents pay federal income tax yet have no voting member of Congress; 'End' was added in 2017.

In the United States, plates for foreign diplomats are issued by which body?

The Department of State's Office of Foreign Missions has issued diplomatic plates nationwide since the mid-1980s; before that, individual states issued their own diplomatic plates.

Why do country codes on US diplomatic plates look nothing like the countries' names?

The codes hide whose car it is from passers-by: officials share the list only with law enforcement, so Australia, for one, was long coded 'XZ'.

The letters 'CD' on diplomatic plates in much of Europe stand for what?

CD stands for Corps Diplomatique, French for diplomatic corps; Britain instead marks its diplomatic plates with a 'D' between two groups of digits.

In the UK, standard rear number plates are what colour?

British rear plates are yellow and front plates white, compulsory on vehicles made from 1973; cars built before 1980 may still wear the old black plates with silver characters.

British cars registered in March 2018 show the year's last two digits, so what age code do October 2018 cars show?

An October 2018 car shows 68, because from each September the code is the year plus 50; the twice-yearly change began in 1999 to break up the sales rush that a single annual change caused every August.

Which registration, London's first, went to the motoring peer Earl Russell?

A 1 went to Earl Russell, elder brother of the philosopher Bertrand Russell; the story goes that he, or his butler, queued all night at the council offices to be first in line.

In July 2025, which registration set a UK record by selling for £608,600 at a Bonhams auction?

It beat the £518,440 paid in 2014 for '25 O' by Ferrari dealer John Collins.

In the UK, which vehicles are exempt from displaying number plates?

The monarch's cars on official business need no plates: the State Bentleys and Rolls-Royces carry none, while the monarch's private vehicles are registered and plated normally.

British 'Q' registrations are issued to what kind of vehicle?

Q registrations go to vehicles of indeterminate age or origin, such as kit cars, major rebuilds and imports without proper paperwork, so the plate does not misstate the vehicle's age.

On 28 September 2021, which code replaced 'GB' as the international identifier on British cars?

The code became 'UK' on 28 September 2021, three months after Britain gave the United Nations notice of the switch; plates may show the letters beneath a Union flag.

The blue EU band on number plates, standard since 1998, spares drivers fitting what abroad?

A country sticker became unnecessary within the EU from November 1998, when a regulation made member states accept the code printed on the band in place of the old oval sign.

How many stars appear in the EU emblem on the blue band of European plates?

The EU emblem shows 12 gold stars in a circle; the number has nothing to do with how many countries belong, and stands for unity and harmony among the peoples of Europe.

On Quebec's plates, which slogan did the motto 'Je me souviens' replace in 1978?

La Belle Province, a tourist slogan, gave way to Quebec's official motto, and drivers were soon arguing in the press over what 'I remember' was meant to recall.

Which European country uses red characters on its standard number plates?

Belgium prints its plates in red characters on white; a darker ruby red (RAL 3003) was chosen with the 2010 switch to European-style plates to improve legibility.

On German plates, a lone 'M' identifies vehicles registered in which city?

M stands for München, Munich; the biggest cities get one-letter codes, such as B for Berlin, K for Cologne, F for Frankfurt and S for Stuttgart.

Which typeface on German plates is designed so a P cannot be altered into an R?

FE-Schrift, 'forgery-hindering script', was developed in the late 1970s amid Red Army Faction terrorism, after officials saw how a dab of paint or tape could turn one letter into another on the old plates.

Which letter do vehicles of the Bundeswehr, Germany's armed forces, carry in place of a city code?

Bundeswehr vehicles carry a Y in place of the city code; by the usual account, obvious codes such as BW were already taken when the force was founded in 1955.

Germany's president has plate 0-1, so who has 0-2?

The Chancellor rides behind 0-2 and the foreign minister behind 0-3: the plates rank the largely ceremonial head of state above the head of government who actually runs the country.

A German plate ending in the letter 'H' marks what?

The H suffix marks a historic car, first registered at least 30 years ago and kept largely original; Germany treats such cars as rolling cultural heritage and taxes them at a reduced flat rate.

The German village of Büsingen, which has its own plate code BÜS, is entirely surrounded by which country?

Switzerland surrounds Büsingen am Hochrhein and counts it inside its customs area, so the village's 700 or so cars carry BÜS instead of Konstanz's KN to show Swiss customs officers they are local.

Which hiragana is left off Japanese plates because it sounds like the word for death?

し (shi) is left off because it calls to mind 死, death; へ is skipped because it suggests the word for fart, ん because it is hard to say clearly, and お because it looks too much like あ.

Which Tokyo issuing office is often considered the most desirable to have on a Japanese plate?

Shinagawa plates carry cachet because the office name reflects the owner's home address in an affluent part of Tokyo, so the plate doubles as a status signal.

Which country's 1994 'AA-111-AA' plate format did its northwestern neighbour copy in 2009?

Under the copied SIV scheme the plate stays with the car for life, and the very first one, AA-001-AA, went to a Mazda 6 station wagon.

In which city did registration plate '1' sell for about US$14 million in 2008?

Abu Dhabi's plate '1' went for 52.2 million dirhams, about US$14 million, at a 2008 charity auction; Dubai's 'P 7' later topped it in 2023 at 55 million dirhams.

What nickname is given to the coloured restricted tags Ohio drunk drivers can be made to display?

Ohio's yellow tags with red lettering are nicknamed 'party plates'; they date from 1967, but judges rarely ordered them until a 2004 law made them mandatory for drunk drivers given limited privileges.

Which slogan did a 1951 law add to Alabama's license plates, where it remains today?

Heart of Dixie, a slogan coined by the Alabama Chamber of Commerce, has been on the state's plates since the mid-1950s, though on recent designs it is printed too small to read at any distance.

Which state's license plates carry the slogan 'Garden State'?

New Jersey plates carry 'Garden State' because lawmakers overrode a veto: Robert Meyner rejected the 1954 bill after finding the nickname had never been formally recognised.

Florida's 1987 specialty plate funding the Space Mirror Memorial commemorated which disaster?

The Challenger explosion of January 1986 inspired Florida's first specialty plate; more than 400,000 were sold within five years, and after Columbia was lost in 2003 the tag was reissued to honor both crews.

Which state numbers its plates by county, with 1 for Butte's Silver Bow County?

Montana ranked its counties by population in the early 1930s, when the mining city of Butte made Silver Bow number 1; Yellowstone County, home to Billings and now the state's largest, still wears 3.

In the state that issued America's first plates, what does a passenger plate's last digit encode?

The expiry month is coded as 1 for January through 0 for October; plates ending in X and Y once covered November and December, months passenger registrations no longer expire in.

Which country began issuing numbered plates in 1898, at first under the name 'driving permits'?

The Netherlands handed out its first numbered 'driving permits' on 26 April 1898; Dutch histories count it the third country to register cars rather than the first.

Since 1994, which four letters have been left off Italian plates?

Italian plates leave out I, O, U and Q: I, O and Q are too easily read as digits, and U is skipped as well, which leaves 22 letters for the two-letter blocks at each end.

Which California prison, known from a 1968 Johnny Cash concert album, has made the state's license plates since 1947?

Folsom inmates have stamped out California's plates for decades, in a factory at the same prison where Cash recorded his concert in the cafeteria.

Which tech founder dodged California license plates by leasing a new Mercedes SL55 AMG every half-year?

Steve Jobs kept swapping cars before permanent plates fell due, and California's lack of a temporary-plate rule was later mocked as a loophole bearing his name.

Which metal, long a mainstay of Arizona's mining industry, were Arizona license plates stamped from in 1932?

Copper plates were issued three years running, from 1932 to 1934, in a place so tied to the ore that one of its nicknames is the Copper State.

Which US state spent 21 years, ending in 1956, issuing license plates cut roughly to the state's own outline?

Tennessee gave up its state-shaped plates only when governments and carmakers across the continent agreed on one standard plate size.

New Hampshire's plates picture the Old Man of the Mountain, a cliff profile that met which fate in May 2003?

It collapsed between midnight and 2 a.m., yet the stone face stayed on the plates, the route signs and New Hampshire's commemorative quarter.

Which state's license plates have shown a rainbow arching behind the serial ever since a 1991 redesign?

Hawaii kept the rainbow for more than three decades, and a 2025 refresh changed little beyond spelling the name with its ʻokina, as Hawaiʻi.

Whose guitar, nicknamed Lucille, appeared on Mississippi's standard license plates issued from October 2012?

B.B. King was born in the Mississippi Delta, and the plate carried a slogan naming the state the birthplace of America's music.

Which Canadian province's licence plates have carried its official motto, 'Je me souviens', since 1978?

Quebec chose the motto, which means 'I remember', to replace 'La Belle Province', a nickname its plates had carried since 1963.

Which US territory's license plates carry the slogan 'Isla del Encanto' and can be ordered in European size?

Puerto Rico sells long, narrow European-sized plates for an extra fee, an unusual option in a country where one standard shape has ruled since the 1950s.

Which volcano has appeared in pale blue behind the serial on Washington State's standard plates since 1987?

Mount Rainier arrived on a 1987 plate marking the state's coming centennial, and the peak outlasted the 'Centennial Celebration' slogan printed beneath it.

Which state's license plates first carried the slogan 'America's Dairyland' on the 1940 issue?

Wisconsin first stamped the slogan along the bottom of its 1940 plates, and later designs have shuffled it between the top and bottom edges ever since.

Which state's plates first carried the slogan '10,000 Lakes' in 1950 and later added a small canoe to the scene?

Minnesota put the slogan above the serial in 1950, and a later graphic plate added a lake scene with a wooded islet and a small canoe.

Which state's 1940 license plates introduced a peach graphic that has returned on many later designs?

Georgia's 1940 plate also carried the words 'Peach State', and later designs went further, tucking a map of the state inside the fruit.

Which state's license plates have shown a white-and-green mountain range almost continuously since 1960?

Colorado broke the run only in 1973 and 1975–76, then sharpened the peaks into a more detailed printed range in 2000.

Which state's plates have shown a lone Douglas fir in front of lavender mountains since 1988?

Oregon's tree design was named the best new plate of 1988 by the Automobile License Plate Collectors Association, the first time the state had won.

Which nautical emblem, also on the state flag, sits in the corner of Rhode Island's 'wave' license plates?

An anchor has marked the plates of the self-styled Ocean State since the days of plain embossed designs, long before the grey wave graphic arrived.

Which state's plates wore sunflower decals in 1942 and carried the nickname 'The Wheat State' by 1949?

Kansas later marked a 'Wheat Centennial' on its 1974 plates, honouring the Turkey Red variety that settlers are said to have first planted a century before.

Which Australian state's number plates share the slogan 'Sunshine State' with those issued in Florida?

Queensland spent a decade offering a rival slogan, 'The Smart State', but nine in ten motorists given the choice kept picking the sunshine.

Maryland's standard plates from 2010 to 2016 showed Fort McHenry and a flag to commemorate which conflict?

War of 1812 plates recalled the British bombardment of the Baltimore fort, the night that inspired the words of the American national anthem.

The song title 'Stars Fell on Alabama', printed on that state's plates from 2002, recalls which 1833 event?

A meteor shower, the Leonids of November 1833, sent thousands of bright streaks across the sky over Alabama, and the spectacle passed into state folklore.

Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay agreed in 2010 to unify their plates under the name of which trade bloc?

Mercosur plates reached Argentina in 2016 but Brazil only in 2018, with a joint database covering some 110 million vehicles as the prize.

Which giant cactus, native to the Sonoran Desert, appears beside the serial on Arizona's standard license plates?

Saguaro silhouettes first split the serial in two on maroon Arizona plates, then moved to the left edge when the characters became flat and printed.

Which flower, the official state flower, sits over a map of the state on Florida's standard license plates?

Orange blossom gives the design its everyday name among collectors, and many plates swap the slogan for the county where the car is registered.

Which Canadian province's licence plates have almost all borne a crown since marking a coronation in 1937?

Ontario came close to dropping the crown in 1948, but protests led by a Toronto politician pushed the government to reverse the decision.

Which Canadian jurisdiction's plates pair a gold prospector with the slogan 'The Klondike'?

Yukon first embossed the prospector in the 1950s, when each dark figure was finished with a single speck of gold paint.

Licensed operators in which hobby can put their FCC call sign on a license plate in all 50 states?

Amateur radio plates are justified in several state laws as a way to make operators easy to find when an emergency strikes.

Which five-mile suspension bridge has featured on one of Michigan's standard plate options since 2013?

Mackinac Bridge links the state's two peninsulas, and the sunrise plate that shows it was voted the best new design of 2013 by plate collectors.

Which racing schooner, also on the Canadian dime, sailed across Nova Scotia's licence plates from 1989?

Bluenose was built in Lunenburg in 1921 to beat American schooners, and the ship on the dime was officially declared to be her only in 2002.

Alongside leather, rubber and iron, which fragile ceramic were America's earliest registration plates made from?

Porcelain plates chipped easily, and before 1920 some states had already switched to embossing bare metal and painting straight over it.

Which state's plates from 2009 showed Allan Houser's bronze sculpture 'Sacred Rain Arrow' beside the serial?

Oklahoma copied the sculpture that stands outside Tulsa's Gilcrease Museum, and kept it on standard plates until the end of 2016.

Which two-letter code, taken from the country's Latin name, marks Swiss vehicles travelling abroad?

CH stands for Confoederatio Helvetica, a Latin name introduced gradually after the federal state was founded in 1848, and the same two letters end Swiss web addresses.

Which country's plates, since September 2000, pair four digits with three letters drawn only from the consonants?

Spain's nationwide format also dropped the old province codes, so a plate no longer reveals where in the country a car was first registered.

Which two letters open every number plate in Liechtenstein, ahead of a small coat of arms?

FL stands for Fürstentum Liechtenstein, the principality's German name, and was chosen because a plain L already belonged to Luxembourg.

Fear of an unlucky '13' helped persuade which country to split its yearly plate codes into 131 and 132?

Ireland's switch had a commercial motive too: a fresh code each July was meant to lift car sales in the second half of the year.

Which Nordic country reserves plate prefixes such as EL, EK and EV for fully electric vehicles?

Norway keeps hybrids out of the series, and so many electric cars were sold that EL was joined by more than a dozen other E-prefixes.

On German number plates, the area code HH identifies which northern port city, a 'Hansestadt'?

Hamburg is one of three German city-states, where a single authority acts as municipality, district and federal state at once.

The prefix SCV, with red letters reserved for the head of state's cars, marks plates from which European microstate?

Vatican City's letters stand for Status Civitatis Vaticanae, and the Popemobile itself carries the registration SCV 1.

Russian number plates use only those Cyrillic letters that have look-alikes in which other alphabet?

Latin look-alikes such as A, B, E and K keep a Russian plate readable to police and border officials when the car travels abroad.

On British number plates issued since 2001, what do the first two letters, the 'memory tag', indicate?

The registering office sits behind a regional first letter, with pairs beginning with S, for instance, allocated to local offices in Scotland.

Which two-character registration did car designer Afzal Kahn buy for £440,000 at a British auction in 2008?

F1 went to the founder of Kahn Design, a firm that customises luxury cars, and the price set a British auction record for a registration at the time.

In Hong Kong plate auctions, which digit is prized because its Cantonese name sounds like the word for prosperity?

8 is so sought after that lucky numbers are held back for public auctions, with the proceeds passed to a government fund for charitable causes.

Which four-letter vanity plate left security researcher Joseph Tartaro facing $12,049 in other drivers' fines?

NULL is the value many computer systems use for an empty field, so once a database tied the word to his details, tickets issued to unknown plates landed on him.

Which vanity plate does Doc Brown's DeLorean time machine wear in the 1985 film 'Back to the Future'?

OUTATIME was a deliberate cheat by the filmmakers: at eight characters it is one too many for a real California plate.

The plate ECTO-1 belongs to a converted 1959 Cadillac ambulance in which 1984 comedy film?

Ghostbusters nearly had a dark car, but the filmmakers switched to white once they realised the original paint would vanish in the night scenes.

In 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off', the vanity plate NRVOUS is fitted to which make of borrowed sports car?

Ferrari aside, the plates seen in the film are in-jokes that abbreviate earlier John Hughes titles, among them 'The Breakfast Club'.

Germany refuses letter pairs such as SA and HJ on drivers' chosen plates because they abbreviate what?

Nazi organisations are barred by name, but German owners may otherwise pick their letters, and many choose their initials plus a number that matters to them.

British rules forbid fitting any personalised registration that would make a car appear what?

Newer than it is means carrying an age identifier later than the car's first registration; going the other way, to an older or dateless plate, is allowed.

Which British agency began selling personalised registrations in 1989, raising over £2 billion in 25 years?

DVLA sales topped 4.2 million registrations in that first quarter-century, in a trade that private dealers had started before the agency joined in.

Swiss number plates open with a two-letter code, such as ZH or GE, for which kind of region?

Canton codes follow the driver, not the car: Swiss plates belong to the owner and are simply moved across when the vehicle is replaced.

Which racetrack's twin spires appeared above a mare and foal on Kentucky's standard plates from 1988?

Churchill Downs is the Louisville home of the Kentucky Derby, and the plate's horses were based on a photograph titled 'The Soul of a Horse'.