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Concept
Stadium
Summary
A stadium (: stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event.
Pausanias noted that for about half a century the only event at the ancient Greek Olympic festival was the race that comprised one length of the stadion at Olympia, where the word "stadium" originated.
Most of the stadiums with a capacity of at least 10,000 are used for association football. Other popular stadium sports include gridiron football, baseball, cricket, the various codes of rugby, field lacrosse, bandy, and bullfighting. Many large sports venues are also used for concerts.
"Stadium" is the Latin form of the Greek word "stadion" (στάδιον), a measure of length equalling the length of 600 human feet. As feet are of variable length the exact length of a stadion depends on the exact length adopted for 1 foot at a given place and time. Although in modern terms 1 stadion = , in a given historical context it may actually signify a length up to 15% larger or smaller.
The equivalent Roman measure, the stadium, had a similar length – about – but instead of being defined in feet was defined using the Roman standard passus to be a distance of 125 passūs (double-paces).
The English use of stadium comes from the tiered infrastructure surrounding a Roman track of such length.
Most dictionaries provide for both stadiums and stadia as valid English plurals.
The oldest known stadium is the Stadium at Olympia in Greece, where the ancient Olympic Games were held from 776 BC. Initially the Games consisted of a single event, a sprint along the length of the stadium.
Greek and Roman stadiums have been found in numerous ancient cities, perhaps the most famous being the Stadium of Domitian, in Rome.
The excavated and refurbished ancient Panathenaic Stadium hosted attempted revivals of the Olympic Games in 1870 and 1875 before hosting the first modern Olympics in 1896, the 1906 Intercalated Games, and some events of the 2004 Summer Olympics.
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