The Geography of development is all about how wealth and the quality of life of people living on our planet varies from place to place.
We can study this on a local scale, and consider with our own community how different groups of people on one estate might be wealthier and have a better quality of life than others.
We could look at development a national scale, and consider how health and wealth change across the British Isles (life expectancy is lower in Scotland than it is in England for example).
The last scale we can look at is globally, because there are huge differences between the quality of life between countries and continents. There are 2 very broad groups of countries;
MEDCS
LEDCS
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What is development and how is it measured?
There are a huge number of measures that can be used to measure the level of Development of a place.
These measures can be classified as Social – relating to the development of the people of the place; Economic, relating to the finances and wealth of the place; and Political, relating to the political systems and freedoms afforded by the place.
Some countries may have imbalances in these measures, so a country may have very high levels of wealth and economic development, but poor levels of political freedom so poor political and social development.
It is therefore better to look at a NUMBER of different measures of development of places before coming to a judgment about its level of development.
The most powerful individual number or measure is probable the Human Development Index, because it combines together economic and social measures into one figure.
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Development Terms
GNP - Gross Domestic Product - value of all goods and services produced within a country per year. Usually per capita ie: divided by the population
GNP - Gross National Product - same as the GDP but also included money made abroad by companies who have their HQ in your country e.g. UK - BP
GNI - Gross National Increase - the total value of goods and services produced within a country including income recieved from and payments to other countries
Human Development Index (HDI) - A measurement which considers life expectancy, GNI and an education index to give a value between 0 and 1, 1 being the most developed.
Birth Rates- How many babies are born per 1000 people in a population per year.
Death rates - How many people die per 1000 people in a population per year.
Infant mortality - How many babies die per 1,000 live births per year.
People per doctor - How many people there are for every doctor in a country or place
Literacy rate - What percentage of the country is able to read and write as adults.
Access to safe water - What percentage of people have access to sanitary and safe water that is free from bacteria and parasites.
Life expectancy - The average age a person can expect to live to at birth.
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