(e) Michigan Region: Another distinct industrial area is that of the southern shores of Lake Michigan, of which Chicago, is the largest city. There are 10,000 factories in and around Chicago, amongst which the iron and steel plants are the most important. Other industries are based on the agricultural products of the surrounding regions, e.g. meatpacking, grain milling and the making of agricultural machinery. Chicago is a focal point at the convergence of roads and railways from all over the U.S. This gave rise to the construction and repair of railway engines, coaches and other transport equipment.
(f) The Southern Appalachian Region: A very distinctive steel-making area is centered at Birmingham in the piedmont of the southern Appalachians in the state of Alabama. The availability of both coal and iron, later supplemented by oil and hydroelectric power from the Fall Line are responsible for the growth of this industrial area.
Birmingham and the nearby towns of Bessemer, Anniston, Gadsden and Atlanta have many other interests, including cotton textiles, chemicals, metalwork and machinery manufacture.
(g) Eastern Texas: The major cities of Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston are the centres of a region, whose industrial development is based on oil, as a source of fuel and raw material. The region has for many years been the major U.S. supplier of oil and gas. It still supplies about one-third of U.S. domestic production of oil and has three quarters of the country's natural gas reserves.
The major cities of the region are Houston on the coast and Dallas and Fort Worth, located inland. Houston has more than twelve oil refineries, chemical plants and synthetic rubber factories as well as steel milling and the manufacture of mining equipment and consumer products. Other industrial cities of the U.S. within the central Unites States are a number of large, relatively isolated industrial towns.
St. Louis has meatpacking, flour milling, footwear and agricultural machinery industries. Kansas city has similar manufactures like aircraft and refining. Other places like Omaha, Cincinnati, Indianapolis Denver, St. Paul and Minneapolis, and Memphis concern themselves mainly with agricultural industries, being located in the midst of America's richest agricultural region. Flour milling, meatpacking, cotton textiles and food processing are some of the major industrial undertakings.
On the Pacific Coast are several large cities; San Francisco is engaged in oil refining, shipbuilding, steel making and food processing. Los Angeles and San Diego in Southern California have oil refining, steel, aircraft engineering, food processing and many other industries including the famous film making industry, now closely related to television in Hollywood. Seattle, Washington, is associated with lumbering, fish canning, aluminium melting, aircraft and electrical engineering.
Canada: Canada's industrial areas are rather restricted by its northerly latitude and sparse population. Its main industrial region stretching from the Lake Peninsula to Montreal along the St. Lawrence is a continuation of the American Great Lakes industrial area to the South. Good accessibility, cheap hydroelectric power and the investment of American capital are some of the main factors that have resulted in expansion of industry. Toronto, the second largest Canadian city has engineering, automobiles, chemicals and textiles industries. Hamilton, at the Western end of Lake Ontario concentrates on heavy engineering. It is nicknamed 'the Birmingham of Canada'. It makes iron and steel, cars, porcelain and agricultural machinery.
Further down the St. Lawrence are packets of industrial concentration like Montreal, Quebec and Ottawa. The industries of Montreal, the largest city of Canada, are comparable to those of Toronto with emphasis on shipbuilding, oil refining, railway engineering, chemicals, paper and pulp. It is also the leading grain port and headquarters of the C.P.R. (Canadian Pacific Railway) and C.N.R. (Canadian National Railway). Quebec specializes in marine engineering and shipbuilding, but Ottawa, the national capital has mainly saw-milling, paper and pulp-making industries. Agricultural industries such as food processing and machine making are also found in this region.
In the continental interior of the Canadian prairies, Winnipeg is most prominent, especially in wheat milling, brewing, textiles, fur dressing and tanning. Edmonton and other prairie towns have industries based on local extraction of oil, natural gas, potash and coal. They also have agricultural industries. Vancouver on the Pacific coast is a centre for lumbering, timber industries, fish-canning (salmon) and metal smelting.
"The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page", St. Augustine said. Here at www.travel-university.org we believe that every page must be read and explored. Travel is an avenue of learning that no text or classroom can teach. The world is a living classroom and you the student. We invite you to the www.travel-university.org library where you can read general interest and detail oriented articles.
