North America benefits greatly from its fertile soils, plentiful freshwater, oil and mineral deposits, and forests. With a strong domestic and export economy focused on this abundant array of natural resources, North America has become one of the most developed regions in the world.

South America’s major mineral resources are gold, silver, copper, iron ore, tin, and petroleum. These resources found in South America have brought high income to its countries especially in times of war or of rapid economic growth by industrialized countries elsewhere.

Brazil

Venezuela

North America produces most of the world’s corn, meat, cotton, soybeans, tobacco, and wheat, along with a variety of other food and industrial raw material crops. Mineral resources are also abundant; the large variety includes coal, iron ore, bauxite, copper, natural gas, petroleum, mercury, nickel, potash, and silver.

Things to remember. The people living in the North America are involved in different economic activities like Animal husbandry,Industries,Services, farming, Fishing etc. The Physical Division of North America are The Western Mountains (The Cordilleras), The Central Plains (Prairies) and The Eastern Plateaus (Highland).

The US, Canada and Mexico have significant and multifaceted economic systems. In 2011, the US has an estimated per capita gross domestic product (PPP) of $47,200, and is the most technologically developed economy in North America….Economy of North America.

United States

In the North, the economy was based on industry. They built factories and manufactured products to sell to other countries and to the southern states. They did not do a lot of farming because the soil was rocky and the colder climate made for a shorter growing season.

The North had an enormous industrial advantage as well. At the beginning of the war, the Confederacy had only one-ninth the industrial capacity of the Union. The North had twice the density of railroads per square mile. There was not even one rifleworks in the entire South.

Slavery was so profitable, it sprouted more millionaires per capita in the Mississippi River valley than anywhere in the nation. With cash crops of tobacco, cotton and sugar cane, America’s southern states became the economic engine of the burgeoning nation.

Although slavery was highly profitable, it had a negative impact on the southern economy. It impeded the development of industry and cities and contributed to high debts, soil exhaustion, and a lack of technological innovation.

The major reason that industry did not take off in the South was slavery. By the time that industry arose in the rest of the US, slavery was so entrenched in the South that industry could not take hold. So the main barrier between the South and industrialization was slavery.

Demand for slaves led to an increase in their price, which in turn allowed plantation owners to obtain cash-out mortgages to expand production. In just a quarter of a century, Southern agriculture was transformed into a nearly single-crop production. This rapid shift was not possible anywhere else in the world.

From 1815-1860, Southern society remained committed to slavery and a cash cop economy. they would make food for their own family and allocated only a small portion of their lands for cash crops that could be sold to purchase seed, sugar and other goods.

The Southern economy was based on agriculture. Crops such as cotton, tobacco, rice, sugar cane and indigo were grown in great quantities. These crops were known as cash crops, ones that were raised to be sold or exported for a profit.

With the gin (short for engine), raw cotton could be quickly cleaned; Suddenly cotton became a profitable crop, transforming the southern economy and changing the dynamics of slavery. The first federal census of 1790 counted 697,897 slaves; by 1810, there were 1.2 million slaves, a 70 percent increase.

The most commonly used phrase describing the growth of the American economy in the 1830s and 1840s was “Cotton Is King.” We think of this slogan today as describing the plantation economy of the slavery states in the Deep South, which led to the creation of “the second Middle Passage.” But it is important to understand …

Indeed, it was the South’s economic backbone. When the southern states seceded from the United States to form the Confederate States of America in 1861, they used cotton to provide revenue for its government, arms for its military, and the economic power for a diplomatic strategy for the fledgling Confederate nation.

Cotton was a labor-intensive business, and the large number of workers required to grow and harvest cotton came from slave labor until the end of the American Civil War. Cotton was dependent on slavery and slavery was, to a large extent, dependent on cotton.

“King Cotton” is a slogan that summarized the strategy used before the American Civil War (of 1861–1865) by pro-secessionists in the southern states (the future Confederate States of America) to claim the feasibility of secession and to prove there was no need to fear a war with the northern states.

While it was true that the cotton gin reduced the labor of removing seeds, it did not reduce the need for slaves to grow and pick the cotton. In fact, the opposite occurred. Cotton growing became so profitable for the planters that it greatly increased their demand for both land and slave labor.

By the early 1800s, cotton emerged as the South’s major cash crop—a good produced for commercial value instead of for use by the owner. Cotton quickly eclipsed tobacco, rice, and sugar in economic importance. Printed depicting enslaved people using the cotton gin.

Cotton plays an important role in the Indian economy as the country’s textiles industry is predominantly cotton based. The Indian textiles industry contributes around 5% to country’s gross domestic product (GDP), 14% to industrial production and 11% to total export earnings.

When Columbus discovered America in 1492, he found cotton growing in the Bahama Islands. By 1500, cotton was known generally throughout the world. Cotton seed are believed to have been planted in Florida in 1556 and in Virginia in 1607. By 1616, colonists were growing cotton along the James River in Virginia.

Cotton is grown in 17 states stretching across the southern half of the United States: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

state of Texas

The top cotton producing countries include China, India and the United States respectively….Leading cotton producing countries worldwide in 2019/2020 (in 1,000 metric tons)