MEDC or LEDC – How do we decide?

Starter: Copy down the key terms below. For each make a list of what features/characteristics you would expect

each to have, eg. tall buildings, poor housing

MEDC – More Economically Developed Country - wealthierLEDC – Less Economically Developed Country - poorer

MEDC or LEDC – How do we decide?

What problems did you come across when attempting to decide whether a picture represented an MEDC or LEDC?

Need to use DATA!!!

Key Terms

Standard of Living:

Quality of Life:

Human Development Index (HDI):

A measure of how happy and content people are with their lives, taking into account not only income but also social factors such as access to education and type of housing

How well-off a person or country is, focusing purely on economic factors – income and jobs

A statistic used to rank countries by level of "human development“, taking into account a country’s GDP (wealth), Education and Life Expectancy 

Measures of

Development

The total of all money produced per year by a

country’s workers

The percentage of people in the country employed in primary

occupations

The average number of years a person can

expect to liveNumber of patients

divided by the number of doctors

The amount of energy which each person in the country uses per

year

The number of deaths per year per 1000

people

The wealth shared out equally among all the people of a country

Number of adults who can read and write in

every 100 people

The number of children per year out of every

1000 born alive that die before they reach the

age of one

Number of kilocalories (kcals) each person in the country takes in

each day

The number of births per year per 1000

people

Primary Employment; Birth Rate; Infant Mortality; Life Expectancy; GDP; Death Rate; Energy Per Person; Food Intake; GDP per capita; Literacy Rate; People per

doctorEconomic Social

Rich countries Little Trade

High birth and death rates

A lot of tradeHigh infant mortality

The North

Poor countries

Japan, USA and UK

High literacy rate

Rapid population growthThe South

Low literacy rate

Slow population growthPoor education

and health care

Europe, North America and Australasia

High GDP per capita

Good education and health care

Brazil, Kenya and Egypt

Low GDP per capita

Africa, South America and SE

Asia

Low infant mortality

Low birth and death rates

Developed countries - Economic

Developing countries - Economic

Developed countries - Social

Developing countries - Social

Country GDP/capita Rank HDI Rank

Australia

Brazil

Burkina

Canada

China

Ethiopia

France

Germany

Haiti

Iceland

India

Italy

Japan

Kenya

Mexico

Mozambique

Niger

Norway

UK

USA

How do I rank data?

Country Land area (sq km)

Rank (biggest = 1)

UK 244,820

USA 9,629,091

Vatican City 0.5

Russia 17,075,200

Monaco 2

Is there a pattern to the distribution of MEDCs and LEDCs across the World?

MEDC

LEDC

1. Can you identify any patterns for the distribution of LEDCs and MEDCs from your

map? What do you think the line on your map (Brandt Line) divides?

2. For 1 MEDC and 1 LEDC use your Atlas to identify other data which supports your classification. Attempt to explain any relationships you find between other development indicators and wealth

What are the limitations of using Atlas data?

It is important you consider limitations of data you use in your controlled assessment!!!

The Development Continuum…

LEDC MEDC