There were indeed many kinds of minerals; coal, iron, and oil were the most important.
Russia, Brazil, China, Australia, India, Canada, and America—the seven held high iron ore reserves;
For coal mines, China, America, and Russia took the lead; Asia, Europe, and North America had fine-quality coal;
Oil was highly concentrated in distribution: the Middle East, Russia, America, China, Mexico, and the United Kingdom.
Franz still remembered this passage from his geography class in his previous life crystal clear. In summary, Europe lacked minerals.
On one hand, development had begun too early, and by the twenty-first century many resources had been nearly exhausted. On the other hand, mineral reserves truly were scarce.
Russia was the sole exception. Every other European country was poor in mineral resources—or rather, their mineral resources were distributed too narrowly. Germany was a typical example: aside from coal and iron ore, it lacked almost everything.
Even so, it was the envy of many countries. It possessed the two most basic prerequisites of the industrial age, while the French next door still lacked coal.
By comparison, Austria was fortunate. Perhaps because its territory was slightly larger, it possessed basically every kind of mineral resource. Only the reserves were rather unimpressive.
Of course, that was only in relative terms. Compared with every European country besides Russia, Austria still held an advantage in mineral resources.
These resources had laid the foundation for Austria's industrial development. By 1870, Austria's steel output had surpassed that of the United Kingdom for the first time, leaping to first place in the world with an annual output of 6.48 million tons.
Naturally, its lead was not obvious—it had exceeded the United Kingdom by only 20,000 tons. The main reason for Austria's rapid growth in steel output was still the growth in domestic market