# Routing Messages With Wild Cards Apache ActiveMQ Artemis allows the routing of messages via wildcard addresses. If a queue is created with an address of say `queue.news.#` then it will receive any messages sent to addresses that match this, for instance `queue.news.europe` or `queue.news.usa` or `queue.news.usa.sport`. If you create a consumer on this queue, this allows a consumer to consume messages which are sent to a *hierarchy* of addresses. > **Note:** > > In JMS terminology this allows "topic hierarchies" to be created. This functionality is enabled by default. To turn it off add the following to the `broker.xml` configuration. ```xml <wildcard-addresses> <routing-enabled>false</routing-enabled> </wildcard-addresses> ``` For more information on the wild card syntax and how to configure it, take a look at [wildcard syntax](wildcard-syntax.md) chapter, also see the topic hierarchy example in the [examples](examples.md).