Geografie 1962, 67, 246-257
Areal Structure of Czechoslovak Chemical Industry
The present paper gives the analysis of the areal structure of the Czechoslovak chemical industry. In the first half of XXth cent. the geography of the Czechoslovak chemical industry was through no particular changes. The construction of new chemical plants in old chemical areas was finished, and the question of supply of raw materials - required in the chemical production - has not changed much. Great changes occured as late as 1960 in connection with the opening of manufacture of the imported Soviet rock-oil and the local earth gas (Western Slovakia), and with the construction of coke plants in Eastern Slovakia. The author points out that in Czechoslovakia the possibilities of supply of industrial water often become deciding factors in foundation of new chemical plants. The importance of this factor is manifested especially in the development of chemical industry in Western Slovakia in the area situated along the course of the Dunaj and its large tributaries. In between 1961 and 1965 almost one half of all investments planed for chemical industry is to go to Slovakia. The paper distinctly distinguishes dispersed chemical plants of secondary importance which do not need any large quantities of raw materials, fuel and water. On the other hand it mentions the centralized chemical plants which form three main agglomerations: the West Bohemian, the Elbe plant, the Ostrava-Karviná plant, and the new plant in Western Slovakia. Areal concentration in Czechoslovakia is much smaller than in the German Democratic Republic where chemical industry is more closely connected with the coal districts. The second part of the article treats of the characteristic features of districts with chemical industry. For such may be held also a complex of chemical works where both primary products and half-products (for instance sulphuric acid, alkali, chlorine, acetylene, ethylene, coal tar, benzene, phenol, etc.) and finished chemical products are manufactured. The author takes into consideration the technical-economic peculiarities of chemical industry and the special character of inter branch relations. Therefore he does not include among the chemical districts the Gottwaldov complex of chemical plants. He distinguishes only five districts - three old (West Bohemian, Elbe district and the North Moravian district with centre in OKR), the Dunaj district and the East Slovakian district where huge chemical works are under construction. In each of these districts he discovers some peculiar interconnections between individual chemical productions and the basic relations between the most important plants. He stresses the individual peculiarities of each district in connection with its economic-geographical situation, the character of raw materials of its own sources as well as imported, which it manufactures.
