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Damodar Valley Coal field Industrial Region, It is the backbone of most of the modern indus-
Ruhr Coal Field in Germany and the Industrial tries. It is, therefore, also known as basic industry
region of the Appalachian Coal Field in the USA. or key industry.
Sea Ports are ideally suited for location of indus- Processing of Iron and Steel
tries to facilitate import and export trade such as Iron and steel is obtained from iron ore which is
iron and steel, the Vishakhapatnam Steel Plant, found in natural form in both sedimentary and
and industrial regions of Mumbai, Kolkata and igneous rocks. Iron ore is mixed with various
Chennai. other materials like limestone and then smelted
Major Industries which follow this pattern are the in a blast furnace at high temperatures using
following : cooking coal.
1. Iron and Stell Industry : China, Japan, The molten material is poured into moulds to
The United States of America, Russia and make pig iron which is also not pure. It is allowed
Germany. to solidify though it is very brittle, but is hard and
2. Textile Industry : India, HongKong, South strong. Pig iron is again melted and steel is made
Korea, Taiwan and some important coun- according to various specifications. In all its form
tries in East Asia. whether iron ore, pig iron or pure iron and steel,
it is very heavy. Therefore, most iron and steel
3 Automobile Industry : Japan, USA,
works have smelting, rolling and pressing facili-
Germany and France.
ties under one roof. Such plants are known as
4. Ship-Building : Japan and South Korea.
Intergrated Steel Plants. Russia, Brazil, Australia
5. Commercial Vehicles : USA, Japan,
and India have the world’s largest iron ore
Brazil and Canada.
deposits. The important steel producing countries
6. Electronic Industry : Japan, China and in descending order are — China, Japan, USA,
East Asia. Russia, South Korea, Germany, India, Brazil,
These trends are further being discussed in the Ukraine and Italy. Japan has to import both coal
case of selected industries given below : and iron ore for its steel industry. In the United
Iron and Steel Industry States of America, the Great Lakes Region is
Iron and Steel Industry supplies basic raw materi- known as the Steel Heart of USA.
als to a large number of manufacturing industries Use of Iron and Steel In India
like automobiles, machinery manufacture, ship After setting up of Tata Iron and Steel Company
building, air craft, building industry and others. Jamshedpur, three decades before First World
War, India has made considerable progress in
this field. Today, there are ten integrated Iron and
Steel Plants, all in Peninsular India. These plants
are located at Bhilai, Durgapur, Burnpur,
Jamshedpur, Rourkela, Bokaro, Bhadravati,
Vijay Nagar, Vishakapatnam and Salem. India’s
iron and steel production has risen from one
million tonne in 1947 to about 35 million tonnes
in 2003.
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