Known for its colonial architecture and inner cobblestone streets, the market is a major tourist destination, dominated by antique, Burmese handicraft and jewellery shops, art galleries, and clothing stores.

The market also has a number of stores for local shoppers, selling medicine, foodstuffs, garments and foreign goods.

Scott Market was built in 1926,[1] late in the British rule of Myanmar, and although it is commonly believed to be named after James George Scott, the British civil servant who introduced football to Myanmar[citation needed], it is actually named after the Municipal Commissioner of the time, Mr. Gavin Scott, a Scottish colonial official who was nearing the end of a 30-year career of involvement in administering the city.

The late Mr Scott, he said, "had done nothing for the benefit of Burma" and was merely an Indian Civil Service bureaucrat paid a "fat salary" like so many others who had reached the end of his career.

[3] Much later, after Burmese independence in 1948, the market was renamed after Bogyoke (General) Aung San.