Industry is the backbone of the economy in many states. Based on the achievements of science and technology, it extracts minerals from the earth’s bowels, produces electricity, processes natural resources, and produces a wide variety of products. In this article, we presented material on the geography of industry and its key industries.
Industry and its structure
The word "industry" in the Russian language comes from the verb "to trade." In colloquial terms, its meaning is: "to feed, to obtain, to make a profit." The term was first used in Russian dictionaries in the late XVIII - early XIX century.
What is industry? This is a set of enterprises in a certain territory that are engaged in the production of goods and material goods. These include factories, factories, mines, mines, quarries, oil refining complexes, etc. Industry is a leading industry in the field of material production, the level of development of which largely determines the economic well-being of a state.
It is generally accepted that production as such originated in the primitive era (about 5-10 thousand years BC) and went through several successive stages in its evolutionary development:
- hunting and gathering;
- subsistence farming (agriculture and cattle breeding);
- craft development;
- small commodity production;
- capitalist cooperation;
- large machine industry.
Based on the scope of the products, the entire industry is usually divided into two groups:
- Group A (or heavy industry) - produces machinery, machine tools, large equipment and electricity.
- Group B (or light industry) - produces consumer goods.
The structure of industry also distinguishes the "old", "new", as well as the "latest" industries. The first group includes iron ore, coal, textile industry, as well as shipbuilding. The second includes non-ferrous metallurgy, automotive, plastics, etc. The third group includes, in particular, microelectronics, robotics, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, aviation and space industries. The most detailed structure of modern industry is presented in the following diagram.
Geography of industry. Productivity Factors
As of today, at least 350 million people are involved in global industry. And these are only rough estimates. The geography of industry, of course, is extremely heterogeneous. The distribution of production forces is influenced by a number of factors and objective conditions. These include:
- Natural factors (quantity and quality of mineral resources, geological and climatic conditions, features of the relief, etc.). They play a decisive role in the location of mining enterprises, fuel, energy and water-intensive industries.
- Socio-economic factors - especially the distribution of the population, the level of income of citizens, qualification of labor resources, etc.
- Material and technical factors - scientific and technical base, quality of infrastructure, manufacturability of production cycles, etc. Determine the costs of production and sale of finished products.
In modern industrial geography, the principle of rational distribution of production plays an extremely important role. It provides:
- The attraction of heavy industry enterprises to sources of fuel, related raw materials and water.
- Orientation of labor-intensive industries to places of concentration of labor resources (large cities and densely populated areas).
- Orientation of enterprises producing products with a low shelf life to the consumer.
- The desire to maximize the use of a particular natural resource through the creation of plants of a full processing cycle.
- Limiting the number of industrial enterprises in large cities in order to improve the environmental situation.
Next, we briefly look at the most important sectors of industrial production.
Fuel and energy complex
The fuel and energy industry is a complex and multicomponent system that includes mining enterprises, as well as energy processing and electricity generation enterprises. In the geography of the fuel industry, one completely logical pattern is observed: this is an orientation toward deposits of combustible minerals (oil, gas, and coal). Accordingly, this industry includes three sub-sectors - oil, gas and coal.
Oil industry
This industry is engaged in the extraction of "black gold", its transportation and processing. Oil production is a rather complicated production process. It includes exploration, well drilling, as well as cleaning oil from water, sulfur and other impurities.
Oil is transported through special pipelines or through sea tankers. At oil refining complexes, gasoline, kerosene, diesel fuel, fuel oil, paraffin and a host of other useful products are obtained from it. The geography of the oil industry of the planet is presented on the following map.
Gas industry
Natural gas is the most important natural resource widely used in the communal sphere (in particular, for heating residential buildings) and various industries. The gas industry is engaged in its exploration, production and transportation. This industry was born at the beginning of the 19th century, when in England and France they learned how to extract gas from coal and use it to illuminate city streets. Today, this fuel resource is mined in its pure form in more than fifty countries of the world.
The geography of the gas industry of the planet is presented on the map below.
Coal industry
This is one of the oldest industries. Coal strata in the bowels of the earth. Depending on the thickness of these strata and the depth of their occurrence, there are two main ways to extract this fuel resource - open (quarry) and closed (mine). As of today, 8165 million tons of coal and brown coal are mined annually in the world. The ten leading countries for the extraction of this mineral is marked on the map below.
Metallurgy and mechanical engineering
Metallurgy is a manufacturing industry that produces various metals. It is divided into black and color. Iron and steel enterprises extract and enrich iron ore and, on its basis, produce cast iron, rolled steel, ferroalloys, pipes, hardware, wire and some other products. The largest producers of ferrous metals in the world are China, Russia, India, Brazil, Canada, Australia and Ukraine.
Non-ferrous metallurgy is engaged in the extraction, smelting and processing of so-called non-ferrous metals, which are conditionally divided into “light” (aluminum, magnesium, titanium) and “heavy” (zinc, tin, titanium, nickel, lead, copper, etc.). Every year, enterprises in this industry produce about 40 million tons of metals, which are most widely used in modern life. The main centers of non-ferrous metallurgy in the world: Russia, Chile, China, USA, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Malaysia, Guinea, Poland.
Engineering is the main consumer of metallurgical products. In addition, this is one of the most science-intensive industries - most of the achievements of scientific and technological progress, first of all, are implemented here. An interesting fact: over the twentieth century, the volume of world engineering products has grown a hundred times, and in some countries - even more (for example, in Japan - 5,500 times!). The main centers of engineering in the modern world: Japan, South Korea, USA, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Taiwan.
Chemical industry
The chemical industry is engaged in the processing of a wide variety of raw materials - mineral, hydrocarbon, inorganic and other. Varnishes and dyes, acids and mineral fertilizers, plastics and car tires, chlorine, ammonia, explosives - all this is done at enterprises in this industry. The chemical industry is the second most intensive industry (after engineering). The level of its development is directly related to the scientific and technological achievements of a country.
Where are the largest enterprises of the chemical industry concentrated? In the geography of this sector of the world economy, five states can be clearly distinguished. These are the USA, Japan, Germany, Russia and the Netherlands.
Food industry
The food industry combines a huge number of processing enterprises that produce a wide range of diverse products - from meat and milk - to beer and spices. It is closely connected with the agro-industrial complex, which supplies the bulk of the feedstock for it.
What is the geography of the food industry? Enterprises in this industry are oriented primarily to the consumer. After all, transporting wheat grain over long distances is much easier than finished bakery products. Although there are exceptions (for example, sugar production). If we talk about global leaders in the food industry, it is worth highlighting countries such as China, the USA, Switzerland, Brazil, Argentina, Germany and Poland.
Geography of Russian industry (briefly)
The Russian Federation is an industrial state with a fairly high share of industrial production in the structure of the economy (36%). The five most developed industries include:
- Oil refining.
- Engineering.
- Metallurgy.
- Gas production.
- Food industry.
The production forces in Russia are not placed randomly, but form clear industrial clusters. An interesting map was developed by the Urbanika Institute for Spatial Planning in 2013 (see photo below). It shows the location of all the industrial centers of the country. The size of the circles in this case corresponds to the total volume of industrial production of a city.
The following cities are among the ten largest industrial centers of Russia (according to Urbanika): St. Petersburg, Moscow, Surgut, Nizhnevartovsk, Omsk, Perm, Ufa, Novy Urengoy, Nizhnekamsk and Nogliki (Sakhalin Oblast).
The main metallurgical plants of the country are located within two industrial regions - these are the Kuzbass and the Kursk magnetic anomaly. Non-ferrous metallurgy enterprises are concentrated mainly in the Urals, focusing on significant deposits of zinc, copper, tin, titanium, lead and other metals. The largest centers of mechanical engineering were formed here, in the Urals, as well as in Siberia.
If we talk about the fuel and energy complex, then in Russia we can distinguish several regions of active oil and gas production. First of all, it is the European North (including the shelf of the Barents and Kara Seas), the Caspian Lowland, Tatarstan and Western Siberia. The coal industry is also quite developed in Russia. The geography of enterprises in this industry is concentrated in the Pechora and Kuznetsk basins.