---
title: "Geography of World Trade"
description: "Why world trade flows the way it does: environments and resources decide where things can be grown, mined or made; location, transport routes and chokepoints shape the spatial pattern of imports and e"
canonical: https://lightmysky.com/learn/geography/geography-of-world-trade-mt_Vpbi5Z4ypw
source: https://lightmysky.com/learn/geography/geography-of-world-trade-mt_Vpbi5Z4ypw.md
retrieved: 2026-10-19
---

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# Geography of World Trade

Why world trade flows the way it does: environments and resources decide where things can be grown, mined or made; location, transport routes and chokepoints shape the spatial pattern of imports and exports

Subject: Geography · Area: People & Environments · Ages 11 to 14
Page: https://lightmysky.com/learn/geography/geography-of-world-trade-mt_Vpbi5Z4ypw

## Ready when they can

- Explain why a product is made or grown where it is (e.g., coffee near the equator, microchips in a few specialised regions)
- Trace a supply chain across a map (e.g., cotton grown, spun, sewn and sold on different continents)
- Identify a major trade route or chokepoint and why it matters (e.g., the Suez Canal, the Strait of Malacca)

## Lesson: Why Trade Flows Where It Does

Look at the labels in a store: shoes from Vietnam, coffee from Colombia, a phone assembled in China. None of that is an accident. Two things decide where a product is made: what the land and climate can produce, and how easily the finished goods can travel to buyers.

**Example.** Coffee only grows well in a narrow band near the equator, warm all year with steady rain, so coffee sold in London or Toronto usually comes from there. Microchips work differently. Making them needs a huge, ultra-clean factory and highly specialized workers, so almost all the world's chips come from just a few places, mainly Taiwan and South Korea.

*(drawing: A cotton t-shirt visits four countries before it reaches a shop shelf.)*

*(drawing: About 12 out of every 100 dollars of world trade passes through the Suez Canal alone.)*

**Tip.** When a chokepoint like the Suez Canal or the Strait of Malacca gets blocked, goods pile up and prices can jump around the world. That is why a traffic jam in one narrow strip of water becomes global news.

**Recap.** Environment and resources decide what gets made where; routes and chokepoints decide how it reaches you.

## Practice

8 questions on this page, each with its working shown.

## Needs first

- [Human and Economic Geography](https://lightmysky.com/learn/geography/human-and-economic-geography-mt_Q-Px2v3Cd_)
- [Countries of Europe and the Americas](https://lightmysky.com/learn/geography/countries-of-europe-and-the-americas-mt_xLEoqfmGFo)

## Opens up

- [The Indian Ocean and the Swahili Coast](https://lightmysky.com/learn/history/the-indian-ocean-and-the-swahili-coast-mt_0hVCaCE7QL)
- [Where Your Things Are Actually Made](https://lightmysky.com/learn/geography/where-your-things-are-actually-made-mt_d1ovR3Nk3S)
- [Empire and Its Costs](https://lightmysky.com/learn/history/empire-and-its-costs-mt_i3Yw06vg5I)
- [Water, Food and Energy Futures](https://lightmysky.com/learn/geography/water-food-and-energy-futures-mt_nEcLm4RkSK)
- [The Silk Roads](https://lightmysky.com/learn/history/the-silk-roads-mt_Ud5GTBfVTz)