ABSTRACT
The major contributions to location theory have been made by economists, mostly with a view to integrating location studies with the main body of economic theory. The very word ‘location’, however, implies the existence of spatial relations, inter-relationships, and patterns, so that models of industrial location are, by definition, part of geography. Of course, industrial production is an economic activity. Yet unless it is so integrated that the procurement of materials, the manufacturing process, and the marketing of the product all take place at the same point (as in an intermediate stage of a factory process), the spatial separation of materials and markets involves transport to overcome distance and so effect the geographical linkage of supply with demand. Geographers have published hundreds of works giving descriptions and analyses of empirical evidence concerning the reasons for, the effects of, and changes in, the location of industries. In general this evidence is unbalanced in favour of a few branches of industry, a few world regions or nations, and an idiographic approach which tends to dissipate, rather than to integrate, the body of location theory and practice. It is not difficult to see why this should be so.
