Chapter 12. Economic Geography and Development

Economic sectors. Primary (extraction: farming, mining, fishing), secondary (manufacturing), tertiary (services) and quaternary (information and knowledge) [2].

Measuring development. Gross domestic product (GDP) and GDP per capita measure output. The Human Development Index (HDI) combines life expectancy, education and income to rank countries [24]. Other indicators include literacy, infant mortality and access to clean water.

Global patterns. Wealth and well-being are unevenly distributed. Countries are often grouped as high-, middle- and low-income by the World Bank, a scheme that is updated regularly [11].

Agriculture. Major systems include subsistence farming, plantation agriculture, commercial grain farming and pastoralism. The Green Revolution raised yields but also raised questions about water use and fertilizer [2][3].

Trade and globalization. Supply chains link production and consumption across continents. Shipping routes and chokepoints such as the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal and the Strait of Malacca carry a large share of world trade [3].

Review: Why might GDP per capita alone give a misleading picture of well-being?