Economic geography
Topic: Human Geography: Nature, Scope and Approaches · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 1 "Human Geography: Nature and Scope"
Meaning
Economic geography is a field of human geography. Its sister discipline is economics. It studies where economic activities are located, why they are there, and how they spread. Its sub-fields, each with its own sister discipline, are:
- geography of resources: resource economics
- geography of agriculture: agricultural sciences
- geography of industries: industrial economics
- geography of marketing: business studies, economics and commerce
- geography of tourism: tourism and travel management
- geography of international trade: international trade
Example
Jamshedpur, in Jharkhand on the Chhotanagpur plateau, grew as a steel town close to iron ore and coal fields. Economic geography explains such location choices.
Don't confuse with
- Economics: it studies production, prices and markets in general. Economic geography asks where these activities happen and why that place was chosen.