Souq often used as in the Grand Socco and Petit Socco of Tangiers. In the sub-continent, a different corruption, 'chowk', is often used in place of souq. The term is often used generically to designate the market in any Western Asian city, but may also be used in Western cities, particularly those with a Muslim community. Documentary sources point to permanent marketplaces in Middle Eastern cities from as early as 550 BCE. A souq was originally an open-air marketplace. Historically, souqs were held outside cities at locations where incoming caravans stopped and merchants displayed their goods for sale. Souqs were established
Souq African traditional markets. Other spellings of this word involving the letter "Q" (sooq, souq, so'oq...) were likely developed using English and thus refer to Western Asian/Arab traditional markets, as British colonialism was present there during the 19th and 20th centuries. In Modern Standard Arabic the term "al-sooq" refers to markets in both the physical sense and the abstract economic sense (e.g., an Arabic-speaker would speak of the "sooq" in the old city as well as the "sooq" for oil, and would call the concept of the free market السوق الحرّ "as-sūq al-ḥurr"). In northern Morocco, the Spanish corruption "socco" is