Human Geography

Jerome D. Fellmann
Mark Bjelland
Arthur Getis
Judith Getis
 Human
Geography
Insert figure C08
Chapter 8
Livelihood &
Economy:
Primary Activities © Medioimages/Getty RF
 Economic Geography
• The study of how people earn their
living
– How livelihood systems vary by area
– How economic activities are spatially
interrelated and linked

Human Geography 11e

 The Classification of
Economic Activities &
Economies
• Categories of
Activity
Insert figure 8.2
– Primary
– Secondary
– Tertiary

Human Geography 11e

 Classification of Economies
• Types of Economic Systems
– Subsistence
• Goods and services are created for the use of the
producers and their kinship groups
• Little exchange of goods and only limited need for
markets
– Commercial
• Dominant in nearly all parts of the world
• Producers or their agents, in theory freely market
their goods and services
– Planned
• Government agencies controlled both supply and
price
• Locational patterns of production were tightly
programmed by central planning departments

Human Geography 11e

 Agriculture

Insert figure 8.7

Human Geography 11e

 Subsistence Agriculture
• Extensive Subsistence
• Intensive Subsistence
• Urban Subsistence
• Expanding Crop Production
• Intensification and the Green Revolution

Human Geography 11e

 Commercial Agriculture
• Production Controls
• A Model of Agricultural Location
• Intensive Commercial Agriculture
• Extensive Commercial Agriculture
• Special Crops
• Agriculture in Planned Economies

Human Geography 11e

 Commercial Agriculture
• Farmers
produce not
for their own Insert figure 8.19
subsistence
but primarily
for a market
off the farm
itself © Corbis RF

Human Geography 11e

 Johann Heinrich von Thunen
• Early in the 19th century he observed that
lands of apparently identical physical
properties were used for different
agricultural purposes
• Around each major urban market, he
noted a set of concentric rings of different
farm products
• The ring closest to the market specialized
in perishable commodities that were both
expensive to ship and in high demand

Human Geography 11e

 Johann Heinrich von Thunen

Insert figure 8.14

Human Geography 11e

 Resource Exploitation
• What Counts as a “Resource”?
• Resource Terminology
• Fishing
• Forestry
• Fur Trapping and Trade
• Mining and Quarrying

Human Geography 11e

 Development of Primary
Activities
• Depends on: • Fishing and
- The occurrence of the Forestry
perceived resources
- Heavily exploited
- The technology to exploit renewable resources
them
- Part of both subsistence
- Cultural awareness of and advanced economies
their value
- Their maximum
- Fishing and forestry are sustainable yield is
gathering activities actually potentially being
based on harvesting the exceeded in some places
natural bounty of
renewable resources

Human Geography 11e

 Mining
• Involves the • Transportation
exploitation of costs play a major
minerals unevenly role in determining
distributed in where low-value
amounts and minerals will be
concentrations mined
determined by past
geologic events,
not by
contemporary
market demand
Human Geography 11e
 Trade in Primary Products
• Changing Pattern of Trade in Commodities
and Manufactured Goods
• Volatility of Commodity Prices
• Price “Fixing” and Technological Change
• Agricultural Subsidies and Access to
Markets

Human Geography 11e