The term “park multi-storey car” is used in the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore and many countries in the Commonwealth of Nations. In the western United States, use the “parking structure” of the term, especially when it is necessary to distinguish such a structure of “garage” in a house or an automobile service station. In some places in America, the “parking garage” refers only to the internal structure, often underground – multi-level open air parking facilities are referred to by a number of regional terms:

* Parking structure is used in the western United States and some civil engineers;
* Parking deck is used in the Southeast;
* Parkade is used in Canadian English, is a portmanteau of the park and arcade;
* Parking ramp is used in the upper Midwest, especially Minnesota and Wisconsin, and has been observed as far east as Toledo, Ohio and Buffalo, New York.

Architects and civil engineers are likely to call a parking structure instead, since their work is all about various structures, and this term is the vernacular in some of the western United States. When attached to a high-rise to another use, sometimes called a parking podium. In the United States building codes use the term open parking structure refer to a structure designed for storage of the car (not repair) that has several openings in the walls that do not need mechanical ventilation or fire sprinklers, compared with a “parking garage” that requires mechanical ventilation or sprinklers but does not require openings in the walls. The openings provide fresh air flow to disperse the car exhaust or fumes from a fire if one operates within the structure.