Town square

Categories: Architecture stubs | Urban studies and planning

A town square is an open area commonly found in the heart of a traditional town used for community gatherings. In Western culture, it typically consists of a park or plaza in front of the original county courthouse or town hall. Italian piazzas are typically surrounded by arcades.

Most town squares are hardscapes suitable for open markets, music concerts, political rallies, and other events that require firm ground. Being centrally located, town squares are usually surrounded by small shops such as bakeries, meat markets, cheese stores, and clothing stores. At their center is often a fountain, well, monument, or statue. Many of those with fountains are actually named Fountain Square.

In urban planning, a city square is a planned open area in a city, usually or originally rectangular in shape. Some city squares are large enough that they act as a sort of "national square."

• Red Square in Moscow was the scene of many military parades, while Palace Square in St Petersburg was the setting of revolutionary protests.
• Similarly, Beijing's Tiananmen Square was the scene of both national parades and protests.
• John-F.-Kennedy-Platz (formerly Rudolph-Wilde-Platz) was the site of the West Berlin town hall and John F. Kennedy's famous Ich bin ein Berliner speech.
• New York City's Times Square and Washington, D.C.'s National Mall often fill this role for the United States.
• Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus (a circular city "square") in London do the same for Great Britain.

In some cities, the term "square" is applied to any commercial area (Central Square, Cambridge, MA, USA), usually formed around the intersection of two or more streets, but not necessarily containing a large open area. In the Boston area, it is used even more loosely, to refer to any intersection named after someone (usually a member of the military or police officer killed in the line of duty).

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, and especially in London and Edinburgh "square" has a wider meaning. There are public squares of the type described above but the term is also used for formal open spaces surrounded by houses with private gardens at the centre. Most of these were built in the 18th and 19th centuries. In some cases the gardens are now open to the public. See the London squares category.

See also

• European market square
• Piazza
• Place
• Platz
• Plaza
• List of city squares

Gallery of town and city squares

Times Square, New York City, USA	Centenary Square, Birmingham, England	Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, England	Town Hall Square, Rothenburg
Central Square, Trinidad, Cuba	Market Square, Nottingham, England	Farragut Square	St Isaac's Square, St Petersburg
Palace Square	Red Square	Strastnaya Square	Lubyanka Square
Tomislav Square, Zagreb	Imam Square, Isfahan, Iran	Skanderbeg Square, Tirana	Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China
Preradovic Square|Zagreb	Jelacic Square	Paternoster Square	Bremen Square, Bremen, Germany
Mons Square	Brasov Square	Mansfield Square	Suhbataar Square
Cathedral Square	Maidan Nezalezhnosti	Wallenstein's Square	Stuttgart Schlossplatz
Freiburg Market	Barcelona Plazareal	Siena Plaza	Eberswalde Marketplatz
Palmerston North	Damsquar, Amsterdam	Kazimierz Rynek	Pecs Main Place, Hungary
Toulouse Plaza	Taunton Green, Taunton, Massachusetts, USA

de:Platz (Städtebau) nl:Plein