But when we distinguish importers from exporters things start to make more sense.
Figure 10.4 shows the relationship between seaborne imports and land area. Strung
along the vertical axis of the graph are some quite small countries with big imports –
north-western Europe, Japan, South Korea and Spain. Conversely, strung out along the
horizontal axis are the countries with a big area and low imports, including the Middle
East, Australia and Indonesia. In other words, imports are inversely related to country
size, though the precise amount of trade arising from natural resources is also a matter
of supply–demand economics. Where demand is high and no local reserves are available,
as in the case of iron ore used by the Japanese steel industry or oil used by France
and Germany, trade is directly related to demand. But often there is an economic choice
between domestic and imported resources.