Economic Sectors & Patterns

Vocabulary flashcards covering economic sectors, development patterns, and Weber's Least Cost Theory as described in the notes.

Primary Economic Activities

Extraction of raw materials from the earth’s surface (e.g., mining, fishing, agriculture, forestry).

Secondary Economic Activities

Processing and manufacturing raw materials into finished products (e.g., factories and manufacturing).

Tertiary Economic Activities

Service sector focused on moving, selling, and trading products from the primary and secondary sectors (e.g., retail, marketing, design, restaurants, shipping).

Quaternary Economic Activities

Knowledge-based sector focused on research and information creation and transfer (e.g., investment banking, real estate, college professors, education, software developers).

Quinary Economic Activities

Highest levels of decision making in government and business (e.g., Congress, CEOs), with decisions impacting millions.

Weber's Least Cost Theory

A model predicting where to locate manufacturing industries based on transportation costs, labor costs, and the advantages of agglomeration.

Locational Triangle

Weber’s framework showing the triangle of Market, Raw Material 1, and Raw Material 2 that surrounds the Factory.

Market (Weber's Locational Triangle)

The place where finished goods are sold; one vertex of the locational triangle.

Raw Material 1 (Weber's Locational Triangle)

One of the two fixed-location inputs influencing factory location.

Raw Material 2 (Weber's Locational Triangle)

The second fixed-location input influencing factory location.

Weber's Assumptions

Foundational premises: area is uniform; labor and raw materials are fixed; one product/market; transportation costs rise with distance and weight; economic factors dominate location decisions.

MDC

More Developed Country; a country with a higher level of development and advanced industrial and service sectors.

LDC

Less Developed Country; a country with a lower level of development and heavier reliance on primary activities.

Development Pattern of Sectors

With development, the primary sector declines and the secondary/tertiary sectors become more prominent.