[matthewowen]

Do people in Spanish cities with strong grids (eg Barcelona) not also use the local language equivalent of "blocks" as a term? I would be surprised if not. It's a fundamentally convenient term in any area that has a repeated grid.

The fact that some cities don't have repeated grids and hence don't use the term is not really a valuable corrective to the post you are replying to.

[mzs]

In Slavic languages we think in terms of intersections for distance, maybe the same for Spanish? Area is thought of either as inside district (say city enter) or in meters squared.

[SAI_Peregrinus]

A block is just the distance from one intersection to the next. Even if those distances vary or are non-square.

E.g. Manhattan has mostly rectangular blocks, if you go from 8th Avenue to Madison Avenue along 39th St you traveled 4 blocks (the last of which is shorter than the first 3), if you go from 36th St to 40th St along 8th Avenue you traveled 4 blocks (all of which are shorter than the blocks between the avenues).