Kiosk

A kiosk (in Turkish köşk; French kiosque) is a small, separated garden pavilion open on some or all sides. Kiosks are common since the 13th century in Persia, India and in the Ottoman Empire. In Istanbul there are many kiosks in and around the Topkapi Palace. The design of the Turkish kiosks is frequently polygonal or square. During the 18th century, Turkish influenses in Europe established the kiosk as an important element of European gardens. The word has a Persian origin.

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In modern English, a kiosk may refer to a stall set up in a public place where one can obtain information, e.g., tourist information. The information may be provided by a human or by a computer. In the latter case, the data may be stored locally (e.g. on CD-ROM) or accessed via a network using some kind of distributed information retreival system such as Gopher or the World-Wide Web.

This article (or an earlier version of it) contains material from FOLDOC, used with permission.