The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines; new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes; the increasing use of water power and steam power; the development of machine tools; and the rise of the mechanized factory system. Output greatly increased, and a result was an unprecedented rise in population and in the rate of population growth. The textile industry was the first to use modern production methods, and textiles became the dominant industry in terms of employment, value of output, and capital invested.
The United Kingdom is a sovereign state located off the north-western coast of continental Europe. With a total area of approximately 248,532 square kilometres (95,960 sq mi), the UK occupies the major part of the British Isles archipelago and includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern one-sixth of the island of Ireland and many smaller surrounding islands. It is the world's 7th largest island country. The mainland areas lie between latitudes 49°N and 59°N, and longitudes 8°W to 2°E. The Royal Observatory, Greenwich, in south-east London, is the defining point of the Prime Meridian.
The economy of the United Kingdom is a highly developed social market economy. It is the sixth-largest national economy in the world measured by nominal gross domestic product (GDP), ninth-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP), and twenty second-highest by GDP per capita, constituting 3.3% of nominal world GDP. By PPP terms, UK constitutes 2.34% of world GDP.
The Great Depression in the United Kingdom also known as the Great Slump, was a period of national economic downturn in the 1930s, which had its origins in the global Great Depression. It was Britain's largest and most profound economic depression of the 20th century. The Great Depression originated in the United States in late 1929 and quickly spread to the world. Britain did not experience the boom that had characterized the U.S., Germany, Canada and Australia in the 1920s, so its effect appeared less severe. Britain's world trade fell by half (1929–33), the output of heavy industry fell by a third, employment profits plunged in nearly all sectors. At the depth in summer 1932, registered unemployed numbered 3.5 million, and many more had only part-time employment. However at the same time, it is important to consider that from 1929 to 1933 employment dipped only to 94.9% relative to 1929 employment metrics and recovery was seen as early at 1933. The positive trend continued across real national income and wages. New houses built increased by 33% from 1929 to 1933, while profits, prices, export volume and value, and imports volume and value dropped. Overall, while all these metrics were concerning to parliament and businessmen along with devastating industrial regions, the common person especially in areas around London did not experience major hardship and even prospered.
The Port of London is that part of the River Thames in England lying between Teddington Lock and the defined boundary with the North Sea and including any associated docks. Once the largest port in the world, it was the United Kingdom's largest port as of 2020. Usage is largely governed by the Port of London Authority ("PLA"), a public trust established in 1908; while mainly responsible for coordination and enforcement of activities it also has some minor operations of its own.
Coal gas is a flammable gaseous fuel made from coal and supplied to the user via a piped distribution system. It is produced when coal is heated strongly in the absence of air. Town gas is a more general term referring to manufactured gaseous fuels produced for sale to consumers and municipalities.
The Greenwich Peninsula is an area of Greenwich in South East London, England. It is bounded on three sides by a loop of the Thames, between the Isle of Dogs to the west and Silvertown to the east. To the south is the rest of Greenwich, to the south-east is Charlton.
The economy of England is the largest economy of the four countries of the United Kingdom.
The Southeastern Maritime Industrial Region, centered on the harbor cities of Busan and Ulsan, is the Republic of Korea's second largest metropolitan area in terms of population and is the second-most developed region as well. It is also an industrial region for shipbuilding, international trade, and heavy industries, such as car making and chemical production.
The Central Economic Region is one of twelve economic regions of Russia.
The economy of Scotland is an open mixed economy which, in 2020, had an estimated nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of $205 billion including oil and gas extraction in Scottish waters. Since the Acts of Union 1707, Scotland's economy has been closely aligned with the economy of the rest of the United Kingdom (UK), and England has historically been its main trading partner. Scotland still conducts the majority of its trade within the UK: in 2017, Scotland's exports totalled £81.4 billion, of which £48.9 billion (60%) was with constituent nations of the UK, £14.9 billion with the rest of the European Union (EU), and £17.6 billion with other parts of the world. Scotland’s imports meanwhile totalled £94.4 billion including intra-UK trade leaving Scotland with a trade deficit of £10.4 billion in 2017.
The technological and industrial history of China is extremely varied, and extensive. China's industrial sector has shown great progress using most of its technology from the 1950s.
Industry is 39.4% of China's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022. In 2007, industry contributed 46.7 percent of GDP in 2010 and occupied 27 percent of the workforce. In 2015, the manufacturing industrial sectors contributed to 40% of China's GDP. The manufacturing sector produced 44.1 percent of GDP in 2004 and accounted for 11.3 percent of total employment in 2006.
Bulgaria is an industrialized nation with a developed heavy and light manufacturing industry. In 2007 industry accounted for 31.7% of the country's GDP. This makes industry the second largest sector of the economy after services. In 2007 the sector employed 33.6% of the labour force.
Pakistan's industrial sector accounts for 28.11% of the GDP. Of this, manufacturing makes up 12.52%, mining constitutes 2.18%, construction makes up 2.05%, and electricity and gas 1.36%. The majority of industry is made up of textile units, with textiles contributing $15.4b to exports, making up 56% of total exports. Other units include surgical instruments, chemicals, and a budding automotive industry.
The economic history of Scotland charts economic development in the history of Scotland from earliest times, through seven centuries as an independent state and following Union with England, three centuries as a country of the United Kingdom. Before 1700 Scotland was a poor rural area, with few natural resources or advantages, remotely located on the periphery of the European world. Outward migration to England, and to North America, was heavy from 1700 well into the 20th century. After 1800 the economy took off, and industrialized rapidly, with textile, coal, iron, railroads, and most famously shipbuilding and banking. Glasgow was the centre of the Scottish economy. After the end of the First World War in 1918, Scotland went into a steady economic decline, shedding thousands of high-paying engineering jobs, and having very high rates of unemployment especially in the 1930s. Wartime demand in the Second World War temporarily reversed the decline, but conditions were difficult in the 1950s and 1960s. The discovery of North Sea oil in the 1970s brought new wealth, and a new cycle of boom and bust, even as the old industrial base had decayed.
Mining in the United Kingdom produces a wide variety of fossil fuels, metals, and industrial minerals due to its complex geology. In 2013, there were over 2,000 active mines, quarries, and offshore drilling sites on the continental land mass of the United Kingdom producing £34bn of minerals and employing 36,000 people.
The economic history of the United Kingdom relates the economic development in the British state from the absorption of Wales into the Kingdom of England after 1535 to the modern United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland of the early 21st century.
The Industrial Revolution in Scotland was the transition to new manufacturing processes and economic expansion between the mid-eighteenth century and the late nineteenth century. By the start of the eighteenth century, a political union between Scotland and England became politically and economically attractive, promising to open up the much larger markets of England, as well as those of the growing British Empire, resulting in the Treaty of Union of 1707. There was a conscious attempt among the gentry and nobility to improve agriculture in Scotland. New crops were introduced and enclosures began to displace the run rig system and free pasture. The economic benefits of union were very slow to appear, some progress was visible, such as the sales of linen and cattle to England, the cash flows from military service, and the tobacco trade that was dominated by Glasgow after 1740. Merchants who profited from the American trade began investing in leather, textiles, iron, coal, sugar, rope, sailcloth, glass-works, breweries, and soap-works, setting the foundations for the city's emergence as a leading industrial center after 1815.
This article delineates the history of industrialisation.
