Flea market

In the United States, an outdoor swap meet is the equivalent of a flea market. However, an indoor swap meet is the equivalent of a bazaar, a permanent, indoor shopping center open during normal retail hours, with fixed booths or storefronts for the vendors.[5][6][7]

Different English-speaking countries use various names for flea markets. In Australian English, they are also called 'trash and treasure markets'. In Philippine English, the word is tianggê from the word tianguis via Mexican Spanish coming from Nahuatl. Despite common misconception, it is not derived from Hokkien.[8] The word supplants the indigenous term talipapâ.[9] In India, it is known as gurjari or shrukawadi bazaar or even as juna bazaar in Pune.

In the United Kingdom, they are known as car boot sales if the event takes place in a field or car park, as the vendors will sell goods from the boot (or 'trunk' in American English) of their car. If the event is held indoors, such as a school or church hall, then it is usually known as either a jumble sale, or a bring and buy sale. In Quebec and France, they are often called Marché aux puces (literally "flea market"), while in French-speaking areas of Belgium, the name brocante or vide-grenier is normally used.

In German, there are many words in use but the most common word is "Flohmarkt", meaning literally "flea market". The same applies to Swedish "loppmarknad" and Finnish "kirpputori". In the predominantly Cuban/Hispanic areas of South Florida, they are called [el] pulguero ("[the] flea store") from pulga, the Spanish word for fleas. In the Southern part of Andalusia, due to the influence of Gibraltar English, they are known as "piojito", which means "little louse". In Chile they can be called persas or mercados persa ("persian market") and ferias libres, if mostly selling fruit and vegetables. In Argentina are most likely called "feria artesanal" (artisan's or street fair) or "feria americana" (American fair), the latter name is due to have taken the idea from their United States counterpart.

Troedelladen (fleashop) by Ernst Thoms, 1926

While the concept existed in places such as what are now India, Bangladesh, and China for millennia, the origins of the term "flea market" are disputed. According to one theory, the Fly Market in 18th-century New York City, located at Maiden Lane near the East River in Manhattan began the association.[10][11] The land on which the market took place was originally a salt marsh with a brook, and by the early 1800s the "Fly Market" was the city's principal market.[12]

A second theory maintains that "flea market" is a common English calque from the French "marché aux puces" which literally translates to "market of the fleas", labelled as such because the items sold were previously owned and worn, supposedly containing fleas.[1][13] The first reference to this term appeared in two conflicting stories about a location in Paris in the 1860s which was known as the "marché aux puces".

The traditional and most-publicized story is in the article "What Is a Flea Market?" by Albert LaFarge in the 1998 winter edition of Today's Flea Market magazine: "There is a general agreement that the term 'Flea Market' is a literal translation of the French marché aux puces, an outdoor bazaar in Paris, France, named after those pesky little parasites of the order Siphonaptera (or "wingless bloodsucker") that infested the upholstery of old furniture brought out for sale."

The second story appeared in the book Flea Markets, published in Europe by Chartwell Books, has in its introduction:

In the time of the Emperor Napoleon III, the imperial architect Haussmann made plans for the broad, straight boulevards with rows of square houses in the center of Paris, along which army divisions could march with much pompous noise. The plans forced many dealers in second-hand goods to flee their old dwellings; the alleys and slums were demolished. These dislodged merchants were, however, allowed to continue selling their wares undisturbed right in the north of Paris, just outside the former fort, in front of the gate Porte de Clignancourt. The first stalls were erected in about 1860. The gathering together of all these exiles from the slums of Paris was soon given the name "marché aux puces", meaning "flea market", later translation.[14]

There are flea markets in Japan. However, because the words "flea" and "free" are transcribed in the same Japanese katakana phonetic letters, they have mistaken them and started to use "free market" instead of "flea market" (Cf. the website of the Japanese Free Market Association).[15][lower-alpha 1]

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  A vintage travel gear seller at Marché Dauphine, Saint-Ouen, the home of Paris' flea market
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  A flea market in Germany
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  A flea market on the Kuopio Market Square in Finland
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  Vendor display at the Brooklyn Flea
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  Wolff's Flea Market in the United States
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  Flea market sign in Japan
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  A flea market in Hietalahdentori, Helsinki, Finland
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  A Flea market desk at Zion Square, Jerusalem, Israel
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  Flea market (Leiden, end of the 19th century)
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  A large swap meet held in Beaudesert, Queensland, Australia

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Flea markets.

• Flea market directories at Curlie
• World's best flea markets directory at fleamapket
• Flea market stories and tips at Flea Market Insiders
• National Flea Market Association (United States)