Economic Geography is a part of Human Geography but, before we define it, let's talk about one of its elements: "economy".
Economic activity
Everytime I ask you what does economy mean, your answer is something related to "money" or "business". Money is an important issue for modern economies, however, is it possible to have an economy without money?
Economy, in a broader sense, is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services by different agents.
Wait! More complicated words??!! Yes. Let's explain them:
GOODS: Physical products, you can "touch" them (a table, a car, a slide of bread...)
SERVICES: Activities that satisfy any need but do not produce physical products (education, healthcare, hairdressing, transportation...)
Stages of economic activity
The three stages of economic activities are:
PRODUCTION: All the activities needed make services or to transform raw materials into goods.
DISTRIBUTION: Activities that get the goods or services to the consumer (transportation, commercialization).
CONSUMPTION: Acquisition of goods or services.
To sum up, economy is the set of activities that human beings make to satisfy its necessities, from the basic needs (food, water, shelter...) to the most superfluous desires.
Activities
Copy the above definitions in your notebook and do the following activities:
1. Learn and make sentences with the following words: goods, services, needs, raw materials.
2. What is the objective of economic activity?
3. Explain the stages of economic activity.
Economic Geography
So, now we can go back to the Economic Geography definition. It is the part of Human Geography that studies the spatial variation of human economic activities -production, distribution, and consumption-, with emphasis on resource endowments, population growth and movements, settlements, and all the economic relations (commerce or transport) from a local to a world scale.
Economic sectors
According to its materials, its means and ends, activities are grouped into three large sectors:
- Primary sector: Activities involved in the extraction and production of raw materials, such as farming, logging, hunting, fishing and mining.
- Secondary sector: Manufacturing activities that transform raw materials into finished goods, suitable for use by other businesses, for export, or for sale to consumers.
- Tertiary sector: A.K.A. service sector, consists of the production of services instead of end products.
Activities
3. Define: farming, logging, hunting, fishing, mining, manufacture (nouns).
4. Classify professionals by economic sectors: waitress, coal miner, pig farmer, physician, builder, car mechanic.
5. Explain your parents jobs to the class and classify them within the three sectors. Which sector is predominant? Is it consistent with the distribution of the Spanish workforce?
6. Discuss by groups: How would you consider housewives? Do they contribute to the economy?
