A marketplace, market place or just market is a location where people regularly gather for the purchase and sale of provisions, livestock, and other goods. In different parts of the world, a marketplace may be described as a souk, bazaar, a fixed mercado (Spanish), or itinerant tianguis (Mexico), or palengke (Philippines). Some markets operate daily and are said to be permanent markets while others are held once a week or on less frequent specified days such as festival days and are said to be periodic markets. The form that a market adopts depends on its locality's population, culture, ambient and geographic conditions. The term market covers many types of trading, as market squares, market halls and food halls, and their different varieties. Thus marketplaces can be both outdoors and indoors, and in the modern world, online marketplaces.
The Moorish Bazaar by Edwin Lord Weeks, 1873.
Group in the Marketplace, Jamaica, from Harper's Monthly Magazine, Vol. XXII, 1861, p. 176.
Spruce Beer Sellers in Jamaica, from Harper's Monthly Magazine, Vol. XXII, 1861, p. 176.
The Bazaar of Athens by Edward Dodwell, 1821
A bazaar or souk is a marketplace consisting of multiple small stalls or shops, especially in the Middle East, the Balkans, North Africa and South Asia. However, temporary open markets elsewhere, such as in the West, might also designate themselves as bazaars. The ones in the Middle East were traditionally located in vaulted or covered streets that had doors on each end and served as a city's central marketplace. Street markets are the European and North American equivalents.
The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, Turkey
Souk in Amman, Jordan
The Deira Souks in Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Shuk Mahane Yehuda, a popular shuk in Jerusalem, often simply called the Shuk (Hebrew: השוק, romanized: ha-Šūq)