Meaning
In British English, a car park is an area or building where cars are parked, corresponding broadly to a parking lot or parking garage in American English.
How it is used
Cambridge Dictionary labels car park as UK English and records both an area of ground for parking cars and a building used for parking, comparing those senses with US parking lot and parking garage. Collins independently defines the British term as an area or building where people leave their cars and notes parking lot as the usual American equivalent.
Examples
- “We left the car in the station car park.”
- “Is there a car park near the hotel?”
- “The shopping centre has an underground car park.”
Pronunciation
/ˈkɑː ˌpɑːk/ · KAH pahk
Tone and register
Neutral, standard, and practical British English. Car park is not slang.
Visitor guidance
Visitors can interpret car park as a parking area or parking structure. The phrase alone does not tell you whether parking is free, public, private, permit-only, time-limited, height-restricted, accessible, staffed, or open at a particular time. Always follow current signs, operator terms, local rules, and payment instructions rather than inferring conditions from the vocabulary label.
Cultural context
Car park is high-utility British travel vocabulary because it appears on road signs, hotel information, attraction pages, station directions, event notices, and everyday speech. The dialect difference is simple but important: an American visitor asking for a parking lot will usually be understood, while British directions are much more likely to say car park.
Places represented
Open the reviewed place guide for each regional sense carried by this canonical entry.