Milestone

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(Redirected from Milepost)

"Milestones" redirects here. For the Miles Davis album see the article here.

A milestone or kilometre sign is one of a series of numbered markers placed along a road at regular intervals, typically at the side of the road or in a median. Milestones are constructed both to reassure the traveller that the proper path is being followed and to indicate distance travelled. They are alternately known as a mile marker, milepost, or mile post (sometimes abbreviated MP), notably in the United States.

The historical term milestone is still used today, even though the "stones" are typically metal signs. More closely spaced signs, with fractional numbers, and signs along a railway or beach also occur.

Image:Milestone@Penrhosgarnedd 2.jpg

In Europe the distance measured typically starts at a city or town, as many roads were named for the towns at either end. In the United Kingdom, a plaque near the Eleanor cross at Charing Cross in London is the reference point from which distances to other towns and cities are measured. In the US Interstate highway system the numbers usually measure the distance to the southern or western state line, while other highways use the county line as the benchmark. Often, the exits are numbered according to the nearest milepost, known as the mile-log system. Some historic and scenic routes use mileposts to mark points of interest, such as along the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina and Virginia, and the Overseas Highway of the Florida Keys.

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Milestones were originally stone (granite or marble or whatever local stone was available) obelisks and later concrete posts. They were widely used by the Roman Empire roadbuilders, an important part of any Roman road network when the distance travelled per day was only a few miles in some cases. The first Roman milestones appeared on the Appian way. At the centre of Rome the "Golden Milestone" (actually bronze) was erected that marked the metaphorical centre of the empire. This milestone has since been lost. The Golden Milestone inspired the Zero Milestone in Washington, D.C., intended as the point from which all road distances in the United States should be reckoned.

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Other meanings

Metaphorically, milestone is used to denote reaching an identifiable stage in completion of something other than a physical journey, as in project management, world events, and the like. Developmental milestones are tasks most children can perform at certain ages. [1]
Milestones is an album by jazz innovator Miles Davis, one of the first examples of his experiments with modal jazz.
Milestones, sometimes translated as Milestones along the Road, is the name of an influential book by Egyptian dissident and Quranic scholar Sayyid Qutb. It posits an approach that everything is divided between being in submission to God's will or against it (Jahiliyyah), and lays out a plan to remake government and society entirely along what Qutb believes to be Quranic grounds.
The Milepost is the name of a guidebook logging highways in Alaska and northern Canada.
Milestone Incorporated is a Japanese arcade videogame developer.