The american convention is that the floor inside a building which is on the ground is called the first floor and the floor above that is called the second floor and so forth.
Ground floor and first floor difference.
First floor ground floor may 22 2016 yanira vargas.
In british english the floor of a building at street level is called the ground floor the floor above it is the first floor and the floor below is called the basement.
This is my theory.
Ground floor is used to describe the floor on the ground because the first floor is actually the basement.
I have seen this practice used at universities.
In american english however the floor at street level is usually called the first floor.
In other places ground floor and first floor are synonymous leading to conflicting numbering of floors depending between different national varities of english.
The upper floors of the ground are defined as 1st floor 2nd floor 3rd floor and so on in britain.
Let s take a look at a small but important difference in british and american english.
In america those are defined as level 2 level 3 level 4 and so on.
The floor at ground or street level is called the ground floor i e.
The term ground doesn t need to be qualified there is no such thing as a second ground whereas any building can have one or more floors or storeys.
Ground floor is the nearest floor of the ground.
In britain it is called ground floor and in america it is called level 1.
In the us the first floor of a building is also the ground floor but in europe the first floor is the floor above the ground floor and the second floor is the one above that.
This is important information for novice american travelers trying to find their hotel rooms.
In the usa for example we typically call the street level by both names there is no distinction at all.
There may be or no difference at all depending on the social convention in a country or the technicall context in which it is used.