The Best Markets On Earth

Flowers are deeply rooted in India's cultural and religious traditions, but nowhere else are they as important a trade as in Mysore, in Karnataka state. The region boasts fertile soil that produces more than 75% of all flowers sold in the country. For 120 years, the Devaraja flower market has immersed more than 20,000 daily visitors in a sea of vibrant colors and intoxicating scents.

The pagne, also known as the wrapper or lappa, is an iconic African garment. Traditionally worn in West Africa, it comes in countless colorful patterns, and each country has its own version. One of the continent's biggest pagne markets, the Dantokpa market, is located in Cotonou, Benin. Every day, the vast 15-hectare market welcomes one million visitors!

Indonesia has long supplied special spices and flavors for recipes from around the world. The city of Bukittinggi, located on a fertile plateau on the island of Sumatra, is built around its spice market, which dates to the early 19th century. Aromatics, condiments, seasonings and spices fill the market's nearly 2500 colorful, fragrant stalls, visited by hundreds of buyers every day.

The city of Mandalay, Myanmar, is known as the "city of jewels." And for good reason! This is where you'll find the world's largest jade market, where some 100,000 vendors, buyers, brokers, cutters and jewelers congregate every day to make and trade the coveted precious stone. The market contains 1,100 shops offering raw and polished stones, jewelry, statuettes, figurines, and medallions.

Before the arrival of the Incas and later the Spanish, the indigenous people of Ecuador were making beautiful textile crafts. Every day, in the city of Otavalo's Ponchos Square, 1,500 merchants set up their temporary stands, adorning them with garments, hats, hammocks, blankets, slippers and silk dolls, to the delight of the market's 500,000 annual visitors.

Tea is both accessible to all and highly sophisticated. It is everywhere in Chinese culture, and people respect and revere it as they would an emperor. The enormous Maliandao tea market embodies the rich tradition, with 6,000 shops covering more than a kilometer. Tea merchants and vendors of supplies like teapots, utensils and boxes share this great commercial hub.

The gleaming black of ebony wood reflects all Tanzanian culture. The Mwenge woodcarvers' market is located in downtown Dar es Salaam, on the shores of the Indian Ocean. Ebony carvings, masks, and boxes share crowded shelves under the stalls' corrugated roofs. Despite slowing business and the gradual disappearance of raw materials, ebony carving continues, deeply rooted in Tanzanian tradition.

Bird lovers all agree: the world's most beautiful specimens are found in Indonesia. On the island of Java, in the city of Yogyakarta, enthusiasts flock to the Pasty bird market. From common sparrows to spectacular parrots, our feathered friends are considered symbols of status and success. To the Javanese, a person's pet birds reflect their social standing - their place in the pecking order.

Western visitors to this market find themselves in a completely unfamiliar world overflowing with dried herbs, roots, flowers, and animals. There are buyers for hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, wholesale buyers, and individual customers. The market is fascinating both because of the products and its atmosphere. Some 30% of Chinese rely on these medicines, virtually unknown to Westerners.

Al Ain is the site of the oldest settlements in the UAE, and the camel souk is one of the region's last. Bedouins and city-dwellers alike come here from the southern UAE and northern Oman to buy cattle, goats, sheep, and camels. Most camels are raised for milk, leather, and meat, but some will go on to become champion racers, to the delight of spectators at the Camel Race Track in Al-Marmoum.

At nightfall, across from the old Royal Palace, cars and tuk-tuks give way to the several hundred stalls of a night market. Under canopies, merchants arrange their wares on the ground and lanterns create a riot of colors. Most items here are handmade. The market's highly diverse and very refined crafts are all crafted from delicate sâa paper, made from mulberry bark.

One of the world's largest gold markets, with over 300 vendors, this souk boasts the largest concentration of jewelers on the Arabian Peninsula. Display counters groan under the weight of the brilliant yellow metal, so ubiquitous it starts to strain the eyes. From simple rings to an all-gold wedding dress, from charms to a 2-kilo pendant, here one can spend thousands or millions of dirhams.

Stockyard City is the world's largest livestock market. Since its inception, more than 102 million animals have passed through this historic district. Since 1910, ranchers and meat buyers have carried on a trade that keeps the entire country in steaks. Enormous packing plants had become run-down by the 1960s and were forced to close, but the livestock trade goes on.