This article explains how the development of transportation and communication has made the 21st century a “global village” and the social and economic changes it has brought about. It also points out that while the development of transportation has made life easier, it has also caused problems such as economic imbalance and environmental pollution, and emphasizes the need for sustainable development.
The 21st century is often referred to as the globalization era. The development of transportation and communication has made this possible. Among them, the development of transportation has allowed us to reach any place in the world within 24 hours. In addition, we can easily access agricultural and marine products from all over the country, and the convenience of life has increased, such as using computer components made in Taiwan. These advances in transportation that have expanded the scope of our lives around the world have been made possible by the constant development of transportation. Transportation is one of the most basic social and economic activities in our daily lives.
Transportation began with the simple need to move goods from one place to another. Before settled life, people consumed animals and plants they caught along their travel routes in the field, but with the onset of settled life, consumption became fixed to a specific location. As a result, it became necessary to transport hunted animals, gathered plants, and fish from rivers and oceans to settlements. Due to this separation of production and consumption, early transportation began to develop around land and sea transportation.
The earliest forms of transportation on land were portable, meaning they used the human body. People initially carried objects by hand or over their shoulders, but gradually began to build transportation tools. These included earthenware, baskets, and bags. Traditional Korean societies also used auxiliary devices for different types of goods, such as furoshiki or bags for carrying grain, and mangtaeki or jars for carrying herbs and water.
As societies developed and urban infrastructure emerged, there were easier ways to transport many items, especially the invention of the wheel, which led to a quantum leap in transportation. The invention of the wheel replaced the initial use of logs laid on the ground, with heavy objects placed on top and pulled by strings. The wheelbarrow was one of the oldest forms of wheeled transportation. At the site of Ur in Babylon, drawings of early two-wheeled vehicles dating back about 6,000 years have been unearthed.
While the invention of the wheel made it easier to transport goods, there were limits to how far humans could carry many items using only human power. This gave rise to harnessing the power of domesticated animals. It evolved into various forms and was in active use from the 16th century until the advent of the automobile.
In the 18th century, James Watt’s steam engine was adapted to the automobile, and humans moved away from animal-powered transportation to fossil-fueled vehicles. The automobile has continued to evolve and become a necessity in modern society, and trains on railroad tracks revolutionized the transportation of people and cargo. From the mid-20th century onward, alternative modes of transportation, such as pipeline and waterway transportation, developed to complement truck and rail transportation.
Early societies that formed in areas close to the sea developed maritime transportation. Maritime transportation began with the raft, the first boat built around 5000 BC. Initially, people simply used floats to cross rivers, but later they began to weave logs together to make rafts to keep themselves dry.
For one of the most ancient civilizations, the Egyptians, water transportation on the Nile was more important than land transportation. Initially, simple rowboats were used, which later evolved into larger vessels with people rowing on both sides. For the first time, sails were used to harness the power of nature, the wind, instead of human or animal power. Later, maritime transportation evolved into various forms, such as Viking ships, cogs, and galleys, depending on the geography and social characteristics of the community.
After the 15th century, ocean-going ships began to appear, allowing for intercontinental transportation, and Columbus’s discovery of the New World. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the East India Company was able to conduct maritime trade across the globe using large ships that were larger than warships of the time. This is when the distinction between warships and merchant ships began to be made, and maritime transportation became a key means of trade that connected the world beyond neighboring countries.
Evolving into intercontinental transportation, modern maritime transportation has evolved into many different forms depending on the purpose. Large container ships and tankers are used to transport goods between continents, cruise ships are used for passenger transportation, and Aegis ships, aircraft carriers, and submarines are built for military purposes.
The history of transportation has been dominated by the development of land and sea transportation, but in the modern era, air transportation has also become an important mode of transportation. Leonardo da Vinci invented a flying machine in the 15th century, and in the late 18th century, the first successful human flight took place in a hot air balloon. Later, airships were developed with balloons and propulsion, allowing them to be used for transportation. However, there were many technological constraints that prevented them from replacing land and sea transportation, and they were only able to fly by simply harnessing the wind, like gliders.
In the early 20th century, when the Wright brothers developed the first powered airplane, humanity achieved powered flight. This event marked the expansion of transportation from land and sea to air. Powered airplanes began carrying mail between London and Windsor in 1911, and during World War I, aircraft improved by leaps and bounds, becoming the fastest mode of transportation with the development of the jet engine.
Today, a wide variety of aircraft are built, including large passenger jets, supersonic planes, fighter jets, and helicopters, and with the development of rocket propulsion, air transportation is set to expand across the globe and into space.
The development of transportation has not only made the transportation of goods easier and faster, but has also changed the social and economic structure. First of all, the development of transportation has promoted changes in the sphere of life. In the days of water and axial transportation, it was difficult to travel far, so living areas were formed within a certain distance centered on cities. Cities developed in a circular pattern, with castles around the city and people living within the city walls. With the development of railroads and streetcars in the 19th century, travel distances increased tenfold, and as transportation costs decreased, people clustered around railroads. Large cities formed at the intersection of multiple railroads, and living areas expanded around them. However, access to areas without railroads was still limited, but the popularization of the automobile solved this problem and expanded the urban fabric back into a circular structure. Commercial and business functions also changed from developing only at the center of railroad junctions to developing around nodal points where road traffic overlapped. In the modern era, the development of highways and high-speed trains has facilitated intercity transportation, creating metropolitan areas consisting of a central city and surrounding satellite cities.
Economic structures have also changed with the development of transportation. The development of maritime transportation in the 16th century expanded the scope of economic activity across continents and around the world, as opposed to land transportation, which simply extended economic activity to adjacent areas. This allowed new European culture and ideas to spread to the Americas, and raw materials from Africa and the Americas to enter Europe. The development of railroads and automobiles in the 20th century made it possible for factories to move out of town and for goods produced in each region to be easily distributed across the country. This led to the development of specialized industries based on the economic characteristics of different regions. In the 21st century, the development of air transportation has expedited logistics and, combined with the internet, has provided a time- and place-independent business environment. The combination of transportation and communication advances has connected the world into a single economic zone.
The development of transportation has made our lives more convenient and has helped shape new cultures by shifting economic characteristics and commercial spheres between regions. However, it has also led to economic imbalances between regions, environmental pollution, and increased traffic accidents. In the future, we will need to develop more efficient and sustainable transportation that addresses these issues.
