(now more commonly known as trade fair), one of the various kinds of regular trading markets—for example, a periodic market organized at regular intervals at a traditionally established site; a seasonal sale of one or more kinds of goods.

Fairs originated in Europe in the early Middle Ages, at a time when the natural type of economy and economic dissociation prevailed; trade, which was irregular and incidental in character, served primarily the affluent social strata, mainly by supplying them with rare and expensive imported wares. The limited market and unsafe trade routes prompted merchants to join together in caravans for joint trading and to concentrate in specially selected and well-protected sites—for example, by the walls of a castle or monastery—where large numbers of people gathered; such sites were found at the intersection of trade routes and in places where people’s assemblies, large religious festivals, and other public events were held.

In the early Middle Ages, especially where cities had not yet grown into centers of handicraft and trade, fairs played an essential role as the only large-scale barter centers. They grew in significance in the tenth and 11th centuries with the emergence and development of the cities, the growth of urban handicraft production, the inception of domestic markets, the strengthening of international trade relations, and the development of land routes and means of communication. The large-scale fairs were wholesale trade centers that were increasingly dealing in “heavy” goods (bread, wine, ores and metals, salt, and cloth); in addition, seasonal produce was sold at regional and small local fairs. In some instances these two types were combined.

The need to regulate trading practices at the fairs led to the emergence of a special set of laws for the purpose. The owner of the land on which fairs were located received sizable revenues in the form of trade duties and requisitions; therefore the right to arrange trade fairs or to grant permission for them to be held was an important feudal privilege. The privilege was granted, usually by the king, to individual cities and to ecclesiastical or secular seignors.

Fairs often specialized in certain types of goods. Thus, Italian fairs were famous for expensive fabrics and Oriental wares, French fairs for wine and cloth, English fairs for wool, coarse cloth, lead, tin, and coal, South German fairs for wine, Danish fairs for herring, and Swedish fairs for iron and copper. The largest of the fairs were international trading centers; in the 13th century and up to the mid-14th, such were the fairs of the Champagne region, toward which trade and monetary operations converged from all parts of Europe.

By the mid-14th century the fairs in the northern part of France and in the Netherlands had acquired great renown. In the late 14th and in the 15th centuries, Bruges (Flanders) was the largest trade fair and warehouse center. Important centers of European trade in the early 15th century were the Geneva fairs (which we first find mentioned in 1262) and, in the 15th and 16th centuries, the fairs at Lyon, which had replaced Geneva as the center of Europe’s money market; the Lyon fairs, first held in 1420, enjoyed the patronage of the French king. In the 16th century the Spanish city Medina del Campo was an international trade fair and credit center, especially for the southern European countries; fairs were also held in Antwerp. The Leipzig fairs, known from the 13th century, gained international significance in the 18th century.

Fairs played an important role in the development of medieval trade, monetary circulation, the money market, and credit. Money changers, who conducted loan and credit operations, set up their offices at trade fairs. Because of the wholesale nature of trade at the fairs, the inconvenience and danger of transporting large sums of money, and the merchants’ interest in credit trading, increasing use was made of noncash trade transactions by means of written acknowledgment of monetary debts and letters of proxy, which were gradually transformed into promissory notes.

Trade fairs declined in importance during the formative period of capitalism. Direct selling changed into the sale of merchandise by samples and later by standard specifications as well. In the 19th century the large wholesale trade fairs turned into exhibitions of samples; commodity trading at these exhibitions was similar to commodity trading on the stock exchange. The best-known fairs of Western Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries were the international trade fairs held in Leipzig each spring and fall (with fürs and pelts the major sale items). With the growth of wholesale trade and the expansion of regular trading outlets, fairs were no longer used as trading centers. Local merchandise—chiefly agricultural products—continued to be sold at the seasonal markets and at small, regular local markets. Large regional fairs almost disappeared.

International trade fairs after World War II have grown into exhibitions of a commercial nature; samples of merchandise are shown there and, in addition, national- and international-scale trade transactions are concluded. Such trade fairs are practically indistinguishable in character and purpose from regular commercial exhibits and showrooms. The various types of trade fairs include general-purpose fairs, such as those held in Plovdiv (Bulgaria) and Izmir (Turkey), multibranch fairs, as in Poznari (Poland) and in Paris, and specialized fairs, such as the trade fairs held in Munich for sporting goods and in Basel (Switzerland) for transportation equipment.

Today’s trade fairs have typically shifted from general-purpose to single-branch fairs—most frequently technical ones—and to consumer goods fairs; various technical means are used to exhibit merchandise, and the trade fairs are combined with scientific and technical congresses and symposia. Thus the general-purpose Leipzig fair was reorganized as a multibranch trade fair and is now both a meeting place for the business world and an important international center of scientific, technical, and economic information.

The basic orientation of international trade fair activity is regulated by the Union of International Fairs, founded in 1925 (headquarters in Paris), which aims at more efficient organization of international trade fairs and promotion of commodity exchanges between states. The union had 94 members in 1974. The average yearly number of visitors to the union’s international trade fair exceeds 50 million.

The sites of the most important trade fairs are shown in Table 1.