Back محطة تجارية Arabic বাণিজ্যস্থল Bengali/Bangla تجارتخانه Persian Poste de traite French תחנת סחר HE Tempat perdagangan ID Faktorio IO Trading post Italian Handelspost Dutch Handelspost NN
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A trading post, trading station, or trading house, also known as a factory in European and colonial contexts, is an establishment or settlement where goods and services could be traded.
Typically a trading post allows people from one geographic area to exchange for goods produced in another area. Usually money is not used. The barter that occurs often includes an aspect of haggling. In some examples, local inhabitants can use a trading post to exchange what they have (such as locally-harvested furs) for goods they wish to acquire (such as manufactured trade goods imported from industrialized places).[1]
Given bulk transportation costs, exchanges made at a trading post for long-distance distribution can involve items which either party or both parties regard as luxury goods.[2]
A trading post can consist either of a single building or of an entire town.[3] Trading posts have been established in a range of areas, including relatively remote ones, but most often near an ocean, a river, or another source of a natural resource.[4] A prominent geographical location and the head start provided by an early trading post ensured that trading posts feature in the history of many of today's cities, such as Timbuktu[5] and Hong Kong.[6]
- ^ Trading post; Factory - Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, 1989
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For example:
Roesdahl, Else (30 April 1998) [1991]. The Vikings. Translated by Williams, Kirsten; Margeson, Susan (3, revised ed.). Penguin UK. ISBN 9780141941530. Retrieved 4 January 2025.
Ohthere [...] also told of a journey south along the coast of Norway to the trading centre of Sciringesheal (this is most likely Kaupang in Westfold). [...] From Sciringesheal he took five days to sail to Hedeby. Kaupang was an international trading centre and Hedeby was Scandinavia's largest trading post. The purpose of the journey was no doubt to sell products from northern Scandinavia, which were considered luxury goods and would fetch a good price, and buy luxury goods which were difficult to obtain in his home area.
- ^ "Santa Fe | History, Population, Map, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com. 2024-01-10. Retrieved 2024-01-11.
- ^ John C. Ewers, "The Trading Post in American Indian Life," Smithsonian Institution Annual Report for 1954 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1955), 389-401.
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Duram, Leslie A. (2024). "Timbuktu. Mali". Endangered Places: Disappearing Sites around the World. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN 9798765111826. Retrieved 4 January 2025.
Nomadic Tuareg people established Timbuktu as a seasonal camp in about 1100, likely due to the location about 8 miles (13 kilometers) from the Niger River. Timbuktu developed into an important trading post along the major caravan route through the Sahara Desert and as a center for Islamic culture.
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Lee, Eliza W. Y. (2013). Public Policymaking in Hong Kong: Civic Engagement and State-society Relations in a Semi-democracy. Comparative development and policy in Asia series, volume 13. Abingdon: Routledge. p. 23. ISBN 9780415576055. Retrieved 4 January 2025.
[...] as early as the nineteenth century [the Victoria Harbour] was already an important anchorage and passage for regional trading ships [...]. [...] Thereafter, Hong Kong rapidly developed into an important trading post.