Location and Aptitude of Soil by Diversity of Uses

This chapter presents a review of the literature on the location of economic activities according to distances to the location of supply factors and to the location of the demand products. Plus a proposal of land suitability classes defined by the list of land uses that can compete for each land class, dependent on precipitation, temperature, soil, slope and infrastructure. Regarding the literature on location the recognized models of (Thünen, Isolated State: an English edition of Der Isolierte Staat, Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1826; Isard, Location and space-economy; a general theory relating to industrial location, market areas, land use, trade, and urban structure. Published jointly by the Technology Press of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Wiley, Cambridge, 1956; Perroux, Note sur la notion de pole de croissance? Economic Appliqee 307–320 1955; Perroux, Regional economics: theory and practice. The Free Press, New York, 1970; Myrdal, Economic theory and underdeveloped regions. Gerald Duckworth, London 1957; Hirschman, The strategy of economic development. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1958; North, Agriculture in regional economic growth. Am J Agric Econ 41(5):943–951, 1959; Krugman, J Polit Econ 99:483–499, 1991) are described. Explaining the method adopted in the book the method proposed is exemplified for land suitability classes for the North of Morocco and for Terceira Island for five land uses: urban, horticulture, agriculture, pasture and forest.