Human Activities: Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Sectors
What this domain tests
Human Activities: Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Sectors tests classification, location logic and sectoral change. Questions ask you to place an activity in the right sector and to explain why an industry locates where it does.
Core rules
- Primary activities draw directly from nature: agriculture, pastoralism, fishing, forestry, mining and quarrying.
- Secondary activities process raw materials: manufacturing, construction and often electricity generation. They add value by changing form.
- Tertiary activities provide services: trade, transport, banking, insurance, education, health and tourism. Quaternary activities handle knowledge and information; quinary activities involve top-level decision-making.
- Agricultural types: subsistence, commercial, plantation, mixed, dairy, extensive grain farming and market gardening. Choice depends on climate, land, capital, labour and market.
- Industrial location: raw material, power, water, labour, transport, market, capital, agglomeration and government policy. Weber's least-cost approach uses the material index: weight of raw material divided by weight of finished product. Above 1 means weight-losing and raw-material orientation; below 1 means weight-gaining and market orientation.
- Sectoral shift: as economies develop, employment moves from primary to secondary and then tertiary, but the pattern is uneven.
Worked example
A sugar mill is proposed. Cane is bulky and loses weight and sucrose quickly, so the material index is high. The mill should locate in the cane belt rather than near the consumer market. By contrast, a soft-drink bottling plant adds water and packaging weight and serves a local market, so it is market-oriented.
Traps
Quarrying is primary, not secondary; construction is secondary. Dairy farming is primary, but milk processing is secondary. A high share of tertiary employment does not by itself prove high productivity. Do not confuse cottage industry with primary activity.