Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Tertiary activities
Tertiary activities
provide goods and services. They include retailers and wholesalers, who link pro-
ducers and consumers; and personal and professional workers, including clerical personnel, financial
services, entertainers, lawyers, and doctors. Tertiary activities typically have no direct relationship
to environmental items (such as farming and fishing) and therefore have few constraints on possible
locations.
Figure 15-1:
This open pit
gold mine in Aus-
tralia is an ex-
ample of primary
economic activ-
ity.
Quaternary activities
Quaternary activities
involve research, information processing and dissemination, and organizational
administration. “White-collar professional” probably summarizes this category as well as any single
term can. Figure 15-2 shows an example of white-collar professionals doing a quaternary economic
activity. Typically, these activities are urban-based and completely detached from the natural envir-
onment.
Figure 15-2:
These IRS data
processors per-
sonify quaternary
economic activ-
ity.
