World Geography (Economic Aspect)
Category : UPSC
World Geography (Economic Aspect)
Economic geography deals with the economic activities of human being basing upon the location, distribution and spatial organization as parts of Human Geography. Human activities meant for earning livelihood are known as economic activities. On the basis of resource and techniques used for performing these activities they are divided into primary, secondary and tertiary activity.
Primary activities are the direct interaction of human with environment that refers to the utilisation of earth's resources such as land, water, vegetation, building materials and minerals. Agriculture, pastoral farming, fishing, forestry, mining and quarrying etc. are categorized into primary economic activity.
Secondary Activities refers to the process of the value addition to natural resources by transforming the raw materials into essential finished product. Hence secondary activities are basically manufacturing, processing and construction industries.
Tertiary Activities involve the third level of human activities such as exchange of manufactured products i.e. trade and commerce.
With the advancement of new interventions these categorization has given rise to specialized services which can be termed as Quaternary and Quinary services.
PRIMARY ACTIVITIES
Agriculture
It is the process of producing food, feed and fiber through the cultivation of plants, and rearing livestock and is also known as farming. About 50% of the world's population is engaged in agriculture. In India as the land and climatic conditions are favorable for carrying out agricultural activities more than 2/3rd of the population is dependent on agriculture for their livelihood. The land utilized for agriculture is known as arable land.
The system of agriculture varies based on the method of farming, type of crop grown, cropping season etc., and they are as follows.
Subsistence Agriculture is the localized agricultural practice where the agricultural products are taken up by the producers or farmers only. It can be of two types:
Primitive Subsistence Agriculture is the age old practice of farming where people used to burn or slash large vegetative coverage and made them usable for agriculture. After a period of two to three years when the land started losing its fertility Aey shifted to some other area and usually repeat the same procedure. Hence it is also called as Shifting Cultivation (Jhum cultivation). This process was adopted by the nomads or tribes of tropics, mainly in Africa, South and Central America and South East Asia. In different parts of the world it has been named differently such as Jhum in North Eastern state of India, Milpa in Central America and Mexico, Ladang in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Intensive Subsistence Agriculture is generally monsoon driven agriculture and mainly practiced in Asia. It is further divided into two categories. They are:
Plantation Agriculture are the farming which are being practiced in comparatively large estates with the support of huge capital investment, advance managerial and technical aids, scientific methods of cultivation, cheap labour and well - connected market. Some of the major crops of plantation agriculture are tea, coffee, cotton, oil palm, sugarcane, banana, and pineapple.
Plantation farming was introduced in European colonies situates over ironies. Later on the French introduced coffee and cocoa in Africa, British set up tea plantation in India and Srilanka, rubber in Malayasia and sugarcane and banana in West Indies, Spanish and Americans introduced coconut and sugarcane plantation in Philippines.
Extensive Commercial Grain Cultivation is practiced for wheat mainly followed by other crops such as corns, barley, oats, and rye. The farming is fully mechanized as the farms are comparatively larger than the regular farms. This type of agriculture is profoundly done in the European Steppes, Canadian Prairies, and Argentinean Pampas, the Velds of South Africa and Australian Down and Canterbury Plains of New Zealand.
Mixed Farming is usually done for the farms of medium size. Wheat is again the primary crop followed by barley, oats, rye, maize, fodder and root crops. The crops are being grown in rotation and intercropping plays an important role in maintaining soil fertility. Both crop cultivation and animal husbandry have given equal importance. One of its important characteristics is its high capital expenditure on farm machinery and building and the other is the extensive use of chemical fertilizers. This kind of farming is done usually in the developed countries of the world such as North Western Europe, parts of Eurasia and the temperate latitude of southern continents.
Dairy Farming is the advanced level of farming in the categories of milch animals. These are also capital intensive farming mainly which facilitates animal shedding, storage of fodder, feeding and mulching machine, cattle breading health care and veterinary services etc. There is no off season for this type of farming. These are extensively performed in north Western Europe, Canada and South Eastern Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania
Mediterranean Agriculture is highly specialized type of agriculture generally practiced in the countries on the either side of the Mediterranean sea in Europe and in north Africa, from Tunisia to Atlantic Coast, South California, Central Chile, south western part of South Africa and Australia. This Lind rming generally emphasizes on the production of Citrus fruits.
Viticulture is otherwise known as the cultivation of Grapes especially in the Mediterranean region. These high quality grapes are used for the production of best quality wines with distinctive flavor and the inferior quality grapes are dried to produce raisins and currants. Olives and figs are also cultivated in these regions. These crops are grown normally in winters and therefore in great demand in European and North America market. It is very useful for wine production.
Market Gardening and Horticulture are the specialized rop production of high value where vegetables, fruits and flowers are exclusively grown for urban market. This can be grown Manufacturing is the process of transforming natural resources to usable finished product as some of the raw material cannot be used in its crude form. Classification of Industries in small farms which are well connected with urban centers.
The essential factors of this practice are better irrigation facility, High Yield Variety of seeds, fertilizers, insecticides greenhouses and artificial heating in cold regions. This kind of farming is famous in densely populated industrial district of north Western Europe, north eastern United States and Mediterranean region. The world famous Tulip is being grown in Netherlands and flown to all major cities of Europe,
The kind of specialized farming being done in the area of vegetable farming is known as Truck Farming as it is named after the distance that a truck can cover over night for supplying vegetables.
Co-operative Farming is meant to pull in the resources of the society more efficiently and use them as the capital for crop growth without hampering the land or the farming practice. These movement were originated a centuries ago and has been implemented in European countries such as Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, Italy.
Mining
Mining is associated with the exploration of new land with enormous of mineral resources. The improvement of mining has begun with period of industrial revolution and since then its importance is continuously increases.
Factors affecting Mining
Types of Mining
Depending upon the occurrence of mineral mining is of two types:
Mining has lost its importance in developed countries due to high labour costs but in case of developing countries it is still a method of earning livelihood as 50% of the earnings come from mining only. Several countries of Africa and few countries of South America are still in the race.
SECONDARY ACTIVITIES
Manufacturing is the process of transforming natural resources to usable finished product as some of the raw material cannot be used in its crude form.
Classification of Industries
Manufacturing industries can be classified on the basis of their size, input or raw material, output/product and ownership,
Major industrial centers of the world
Country |
Major Industrial Centers |
Industries |
Britain (Midland is the largest Industrial region centered at Birmingham)
|
Centers Birmingham Coventiv Burlon-on-Trent Stoke-on-Trent New Castle Middlesbrough Shefield (World?s largest cutlery town) Manchester (Lancashire region) Liverpool & Birkenhead Along Manchester Canal
Pot Glasgow Belfast region (Main industrial region of Ireland) |
Iron & Steel. Heavy Machinery Automobile Brewing (largest brewery town of Britain) Poltery (Pottery capital of Britain) Shipbuilding Iron & Sleel Worsted textile Garments Cutler,-. Iron & Steel Cotton textile Shipbuilding Heavy chemicals Iron & Steel Shipbuilding Shipbuilding & Linen industry |
France
|
Lille Dunkirns St. Etienne Limoges Lyone Marseilles Paris Champaque Lorrensar |
Textiles Iron & Steel Armaments & Bicycle Pottery Silk making Oil refineries Aircraft & Transport Wine Iron & Steel |
Germany (Ruhr-Westphalia region, served by Rhine River, is the largest industrial region of Germany This industrial region is connected to North sea by Dortmund -Ems canal) |
Frankfurt Mainz Munich Stuttgart Aachen Leipzig Jena Zeiss Dresden Karl Marx Stadt |
Railway engineering Leather. Brewing, Engineering Chemical, electrical engineering Iron & Steel. Shipbuilding Photographic equipment. Musical instrument Automobile Iron & Steel. Textile Optical instrument Photographic equipment Porcelain Textiles |
Belgium
|
Liege Antwerp Ghent |
Iron & Steel. Guns. pistols & other firearms Diamond cutting Linen textiles |
Luxemberg Netherland |
Luxemberg city Rotterdam Amsterdam Arnhem |
Engineering Shipbuilding and marine engineering Diamond cutting Tin smelting |
Sweden
|
Goteborg Stockhom |
Shipbuilding Shipbuilding |
Switzerland
|
Zurich Basel Baden |
Engineering and Textiles Engineering |
Denmark |
Kopenhagen |
Dairy |
Italy |
Milan (main industrial region) Turin (Detroit of Italy) |
Silk textile Motor Car |
U.S.A. (Great Lake region) is the most important industrial region |
Boston Pittsburg Akron Detroi Pontiac Flint Gary Chicago Toledo Birmingham Troy Buffalo San Fransisco (Silicon Valley) |
Shipbuilding Iron and Steel (Iron & Steel capital of the world) World's largest synthetic rubber and tyre making centre Motor car and Aeroplane Cars and it's spare parts Iron and Steel Automobile Iron and Steel Garment Iron and Steel, Machine (It is also the largest flour |
Canada |
Montreal Toronto Otawa Hamilton Birmingham) of Canada) Quebec |
Shipbuilding and Aircraft Engineering and Automobile Paper Iron and Steel. Engineerin" Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering |
Russia |
Moscow and Gorky Magnitogost Leningrad (St. Petersbeig) |
Iron and Steel, Chemicals Iron and Steel, Oil refining Textile. Chemical. Paper |
Ukraine |
Krivoyrog |
Iron & Steel and Heavy Machinery |
Argentina |
Bueons Aires |
Shipbuilding |
China |
Shanghai Wuhan |
Textile and Machinery Textile. Machinery. Shipbuilding. Iron and Steel |
Japan |
Nagoya (Detroit of Japan) Osaka (Manchester of Japan) Kyoto and Kobe Tokyo Nagasaki |
Aircraft, Car, Machinery Shipbuilding. Textile. Iron & Steel Shipbuilding. Testtile. Iron & Steel Shipbuilding, Engineering, and Textile Shipbuilding, Iron and Steel. Machinery |
TERTIARY ACTIVITIES
Tertiary Activities focuses both on production and exchange. Here production involves provision of services which are to be consumed. There is no such involvement of physical processing of raw material rather it's a service meant for exchanging the finished product. Services such as Trade and Transports belong to Tertiary economic activities.
1. Trade and commerce
Trading is essentially involves buying and selling of products intended for earning profit. The process is further divided into retail and wholesale.
2. Transport
It is a service which facilitates the process of trading of people, materials and manufactured products with ease. In other words it is the organized industry to satisfy man's need of mobility. On the basis of the modes of transport it can be of four types:
Road Transport
Rail Transport
The history of railway were dated back in 650 BC and it was started with the introduction of wagan ways which were said to be further developed and widely used in 1550 AD in Germany with the invention of steam engine the railway grew many folds over the years. The first steam locomotive was built in 1804 in united kingdom. The first ever mechanised rail transport was introduced by England and ever since railways have remained as an important means of land transport.
Major Trans-Continental Railways of World
Water Transport
Water transport is considered to be one of the oldest form
of transport. It is cheapest mode of transport. The cost of
production alongwith the cost of operation is also low incase of water transport. There are evidences which shows that boats were used in the form dugout canoe (a boat made from a hallowed tree trunk) in ancient period. It is considered that Egyptians probably were the first to use sail boat. The Mesopotamian and Indus valley civilization excavation have shown the presences of habour and ports.
Water transportation includes canals, lakes, rivers, seas and oceans. It is mainly divided into two categories:
Sea Routes
Oceans provide smooth traversable highway in all direction with low maintenance cost. Major sea routes are:
The North Atlantic Sea Route
It is linking two major industrially developed regions of the
world such as North-Eastern USA and North-Western Europe.
The Mediterranean-Indian Ocean Sea Route
It is considered to be the most important sea route as at serves more countries and people than this route are port said, Aden, Mumbai, Colombo, and Singapore. The distance covered by this route has drastically reduced with the construction of suex canal.
The cape of Good Hope Sea Route
It connects west European and West African countries with
Brazil, Argentina and Urguay in South America.
The North Pacific Sea Route
It is connecting Western European, North American with
Australian countries is used for reaching Hongkong, Philippines and Indonesia. Honolulu is the most important sea port of this route.
Inland Water Transport
River, Canals, Lakes and Coastal area the important components of inland water transport as they facilitate transportation of goods and services with in the country. Boats qand steam are the important means of transport. The significant waterways of the world are:
The Rhine Waterway
River Rhine flows through Germany and Netherland. It is
navigable for 700 km. It serves industrial areas of Switzerland, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
The Dawube Waterway
River Danube serves Eastern Europe as it rises from Black forest and flows eastward through many countries. The nevigation is possible only upto Taurna Sevenin, this river transport facilitates the export of wheat, maize, timber and machinery.
The Volga Waterways
Volga is one of important water ways of Russia which provides a navigable water route of 11,200 km and it drains into Caspian sea.
The Great Lake - St. Lawrence Seaways
Together with canal and welland canal, the great lake of North America Superior, Huron Erie and Ontario forms the Great lakes - St. Lawrence Seaways. Major ports of this routes are, Duluth and Buffalo.
Air Transport
It is the fastest way of transport but at the same time it is the costliest among the all medium of communication, still it is preferred by passenger for travelling across countries or sending cargoes across countries. The growth of Air Transport has reduced the travel time across the world to a great extent. But keeping in view the manufacturing ofaircrafts and its associated elaborated infrastructure like hangars, landing, fuelling and maintaining these facilities, the air transport is considered to be the costliest among all transportation system.
Inter-continental Air routes
Pipeline Transport
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