Proposal:Marketplace classification

Marketplace classification
Proposal status:	Draft (under way)
Proposed by:	Duja
Tagging:	amenity=marketplace
Applies to:
Definition:	Classification of marketplaces according to goods traded.
Statistics:
Draft started:	2026-09-23
RFC start:	2026-09-23

Problem Statement

The established feature tag amenity=marketplace denotes "public marketplace where goods and services are traded daily or weekly" but does not go deeper than that. The most common marketplaces are used to trade locally produced grocery products (vegetables, fruits, dairy and meat), perhaps with some craft and consumer goods along, in a direct seller-to-buyer fashion. However, there are also specialized marketplaces which are difficult to descibe using the existing tagging: notable examples include flea markets, where second-hand goods are traded, and livestock markets, trading live animals. Also, there is no established method to distinguish wholesale markets from retail markets.

This proposal aims to establish classification of marketplaces according to general classes of traded goods and services, by defining a set of most common values of the marketplace=*. (The key has been in sporadic use but without clearly established scheme). In addition, it recommends a few ancillary tags to be used in combination, in order to define details of goods and trading practices.

Proposal

The key marketplace=* provides an optional classification of marketplaces (amenity=marketplace) according to the general type of goods being traded. The proposal defines a non-exhaustive list of possible values, based on the most common market types encountered in the real world. New values may be defined using a proposal process or "any tags you like" approach.

The table only defines broad "generic" types such as grocery. More details about goods sold can be defined using additional tags such as produce=*, product=*, animal=*, or craft=*. Those details are expected to be used rarely, with very specialized marketplaces, but may be also used in the future, for marketplace sectors.

Many marketplaces trade a variety of goods, which are sometimes separated into different sections, and sometimes mixed-in. The value should be chosen according to the dominant type of goods, if it can be established; otherwise, you can use the marketplace=variety or just omit the tag. Specifying variety explicitly asserts that the survey has been performed and that there is indeed a broad variety of goods traded.

Some marketplaces host different markets on different days of the week, different seasons, or even daytimes. For example, a grocery market can be held in the morning, and a food market in the evening, on the same stalls. Those situations are out of scope of this proposal, which only defines a single "dominant" type; use variety as a fallback.

Value	Description	Photo
variety	Marketplace where a variety of goods is traded, with no clear dominant type.
grocery	Marketplace where mainly fresh grocery products (fruits, vegetables, dairy, meat or fish) are traded.
flea	Marketplace selling previously owned goods, including used goods, collectibles, antiques and vintage clothing
consumer	Marketplace selling a variety of consumer products, but not typically second-hand: may include clothing, domestic products, electronics etc.
livestock	Marketplace where living animals are traded, wholesale or in retail.
fish	Marketplace where mainly fish and other seafood are sold.
craft	Marketplace selling local craft products, such as confectionery, jewellery, clothing and pottery. This includes typical "Christmas markets". Often tourist-oriented, and may include some food and grocery stalls.
flower	Marketplace where living plants and picked flowers are traded.
food	Marketplace featuring fast-food and confectionery stalls. This should be used only for occasional markets featuring local cuisine offer. For permanent "food markets", use amenity=food court instead.

Ancillary tags

The following tags may additionally describe character of the marketplace, method of trading and goods sold. They are listed here for completeness (most being already used for related features) and not strictly part of this proposal, so they might be unbundled on request:

• wholesale=*=yes/no/only – defines whether the goods are sold in the wholesale fashion,
• physically_present=*=no – the marketplace has no permanent stalls or shops outside the opening hours, and may appear as a blank parcel otherwise.
• auction=* – indicates whether the items (typically livestock) are sold by optional (yes) or mandatory (only) auction. The value of no indicates direct buyer-to-seller agreement.
• seasonal=* – the marketplace is only open in a defined season.
• second_hand=* – specifies whether second-hand goods are (also) sold, particularly in combination with marketplace=consumer or marketplace=flea.

Rationale

The proposal originates from Correct tags for a livestock market discussion on the Community Forum, which revealed gaps in OSM marketplace tagging model, to be addressed by this proposal.

The little-used marketplace=* has been selected as the main key for classification; alternatives may include marketplace:type, but we have to pick up one.

This proposal is to be complemented with related Proposal:Marketplace details, where I plan to propose micro-mapping of marketplace features, to be tagged as marketplace:sector=*, marketplace:shop=*, marketplace:stall=* and/or marketplace:plot=*. Since those are mostly independent, they will be part of a different proposal. (However, note that cemetery=sector (which describes a similar structure) uses cemetery=* for specifying parts of cemetery; this proposal takes a different route).

Impact on Data Consumers

The proposal is an iterative refinement of an existing tag, and hence does not require immediate adoption either in data model or in data consumers. It is not expected to affect routing software and data analysis tools.

If accepted, it will be followed by requests for new presets (presumably "Green Market", "Flea Market" and "Livestock Market" ) in id-tagging-schema and JOSM. Those will benefit from new rendering icons, but the currently used one for marketplace is an acceptable fallback and does not require immediate update.

External discussions

• Correct tags for a livestock market on Community Forum

Comments

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