Industry Maps

maps depicting the location and development of industrial production. The various characteristics of industrial production (including development level, specialization, capacity of equipment, number of employees, volume of gross product in value or physical terms, fixed assets, production growth, and economic ties) are indicated on the industry maps for individual enterprises, populated areas, industrial centers, or territorial units (countries or regions). The industry maps are compiled based on a key method; cartograms, map-diagrams (collation maps), and area maps are also used.

In terms of content, industry maps are divided into general-industry and sectorial maps, which are divided into maps for power engineering and for mining and manufacturing industries. In turn these are divided into narrow sectorial maps for individual sectors of industrial production. Industry maps show the existing and planned location of industry and depict the characteristics essential to its further development (such as transportation, raw materials, and fuel resources). Industry maps are used in the study of the patterns of the existing location of industry, in current and long-range planning, in the day-by-day administration of the national economic sectors, and in scientific planning. Among the maps used for these purposes are scientific reference maps, planning maps, economic operational maps, variant maps, and evaluation and planning maps.

In the middle of the 19th century, industry maps (1842) and an economic statistics atlas (1851) were published for European Russia. During the years of Soviet power, many industry maps have been published, including the USSR industry maps (1927, 1929), the Atlas of Industry of the USSR (1929–31), and the Atlas of Industry of the USSR at the Beginning of the Second Five-year Plan (1934).

A large number of modern maps of industry can be found in such new Soviet and foreign atlases as the regional comprehensive atlases of the USSR and the regional planning atlases of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Industry maps are being improved by enriching their content, depicting the diverse interdependencies of the production and territorial complexes, and including technical and economic indicators (such as capital return and the level of concentration).