Account for the change in the spatial pattern of the Iron and Steel industry in the world.

The iron and steel industry, once the textbook case of raw-material orientation, has relocated repeatedly as technology, material sources and markets changed.

Stages of spatial change

• Coalfield locations (nineteenth century): with several tonnes of coal needed per tonne of steel, plants clustered on coalfields — the Ruhr, South Wales, and Pittsburgh–Appalachia.
• Ore-field and break-of-bulk sites: fuel-efficient furnaces cut coal requirements, pulling plants towards ore bodies and transfer points — Lorraine in France and the Great Lakes shores at Chicago and Duluth.
• Coastal tidewater locations (post-Second World War): growing dependence on imported high-grade ore and coking coal shifted integrated plants to deep-water ports — Japan’s Tokyo Bay–Osaka–Kobe belt, Taranto in Italy, Rotterdam, and later India’s Visakhapatnam.
• Market-oriented mini-mills: scrap-based electric-arc furnaces, footloose from both coal and ore, spread near consumption centres, hastening the decline of old integrated districts into “rust belts”.
• Shift to emerging economies: cheap labour, surging domestic demand and state investment moved capacity to Asia — China now produces about half of the world’s crude steel and India is the second-largest producer, while output in Western Europe and North America has shrunk.

Steel-making has thus migrated from coalfields to coasts to the developing world — its location today tracks technology, logistics and demand rather than raw materials alone.