The marketplace shopping in Poland has a very long tradition but this form of trade was developing very fast in our country during the transformation years. In his paper an attempt was made to analyze the variability trend of the phenomenon in the period preceding Poland’s accession to the European Union. To this end, an analysis was made of the number of permanent marketplaces, the number of permanent market stalls in permanent marketplaces and the sales area in permanent marketplaces in Poland in the years 1999–2004. At the country scale, a slightly declining dynamics of marketplace shopping was noticed, and its high spatial and time variability as well its signifi cant dependence on cross-border shopping were observed. In western and southern Poland downward trends were prevalent, and in eastern and central Poland upward trends were observed.

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