Where things come from: resources and trade
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What you will learn
By the end, you can explain what natural resources are, what imports and exports are, and why countries trade.
Explorer’s log for one breakfast: the cocoa in the chocolate spread came from Ghana, the banana from Ecuador, the tea from Kenya and the rice from Thailand. Nothing on the table grew nearby. Your kitchen is a small world map, drawn by trade.
Read the explanation
Natural resources are useful things we take from nature: water, soil, timber, fish, oil, gas, metals and sunlight. No place has everything, so places trade. A country exports (sells abroad) what it has plenty of and imports (buys in) what it lacks. Places specialise in what their climate, land and skills make them best at: bananas grow in the hot, wet tropics, not in Iceland.
- Renewable resources (trees, fish, wind, sunlight) can grow back or keep coming; non-renewable ones (oil, coal, metals) are gone once they are used.
- Climate decides crops: cocoa and bananas need heat and rain; wheat prefers cooler, drier plains.
- Trade needs transport: ships carry most of the goods that travel between countries, port to port.