page_title: Great Divergence
section_title: Coal
hierarchical_section_title: Great Divergence / Possible factors / Coal
caption_attribution_description: British Coalfields, 19th Century
context_page_description: The Great Divergence or European miracle is the socioeconomic shift in which the Western world overcame pre-modern growth constraints and emerged during the 19th century as the most powerful and wealthy world civilization, eclipsing Mughal India, Qing China, the Islamic World, Joseon Korea, and Tokugawa Japan.
  Scholars have proposed a wide variety of theories to explain why the Great Divergence happened, including geography, culture, institutions, colonialism, resources and just pure chance. There is disagreement over the nomenclature of the "great" divergence, as a clear point of beginning of a divergence is traditionally held to be the 16th or even the 15th century, with the commercial revolution and the origins of mercantilism and capitalism during the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery, the rise of the European colonial empires, proto-globalization, the Scientific Revolution, or the Age of Enlightenment. Yet the largest jump in the divergence happened in the 19th century with the Industrial Revolution and Technological Revolution. For this reason, the "California school" considers only this to be the great divergence.
context_section_description: In metallurgy and steam engines the Industrial Revolution made extensive use of coal and coke – as cheaper, more plentiful and more efficient than wood and charcoal.
  Coal-fired steam engines also operated in the railways and in shipping, revolutionizing transport in the early 19th century.
  Kenneth Pomeranz drew attention to differences in the availability of coal between West and East. Due to regional climate, European coal mines were wetter, and deep mines did not become practical until the introduction of the Newcomen steam engine to pump out groundwater.  In mines in the arid northwest of China, ventilation to prevent explosions was much more difficult.
  Another difference involved geographic distance; although China and Europe had comparable mining technologies, the distances between the economically developed regions and coal deposits differed vastly. The largest coal deposits in China are located in the northwest, within reach of the Chinese industrial core during the Northern Song (960–1127). During the 11th century China developed sophisticated technologies to extract and use coal for energy, leading to soaring iron production. The southward population shift between the 12th and 14th centuries resulted in new centers of Chinese industry far from the major coal deposits. Some small coal deposits were available locally, though their use was sometimes hampered by government regulations. In contrast, Britain contained some of the largest coal deposits in Europe – all within a relatively compact island.
  Ottoman Egypt, which used steam power for industrial manufacturing under Muhammad Ali Pasha (ruled 1805–1848), had a lack of coal resources. However, Muhammad Ali Pasha's prospectors searched for coal deposits, and boilers were manufactured and installed in various industries. Egypt also imported coal from overseas, at similar prices to what imported coal cost in France, until the 1830s, when Cairo gained access to coal sources in Lebanon, which had a yearly coal output of 4,000 tons. Economic historian Jean Batou argues that, in addition to having the necessary conditions for rapid industrialization, Egypt also had the necessary conditions for the adoption of oil as a potential energy source for its steam engines later in the 19th century.
caption: The distribution of coal deposits shaped industrial development in Britain.
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