availability of water and large tracts of land

AVAILABILITY OF WATER AND LARGE TRACTS OF LAND;
Water is required for cooling and washing.Thus the neaness to a river lake or s coastal site has necessary for the industry .Large tracts of level land are also necessary for the iron and steel work as the various operation connected with the production of iron and steel cannot be carried on in a limited area.For example the steel mill of karachi covers an area of 18,623 acres of land.
TRANSPORTATION FACILITY;
Easy transport is required for moving bulky and cheap raw materials such as iron,ore,coal and limestone and for moving out the heavy manufactured good.
MARKET;
The producers of the iron and steel industry are the raw material for a number of subsidiary industries such as machine tools.Railway  equipments engineering  goods electrical goods and transport equipments etc.For the development of iron and steel industry subsidiary idustries are essential.
Energy/power; chapter-07unit-01 Coastal location; chapter-07 unit-01.
GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION;
Iron production is predominately in asia australiasia and north america.China had a production of 683million tons and japan's is 108 million tons.The US produces 86 million tons for others see the table.
The main producers are MEDCs but there is an increasing number of LEDCs e.g. china,india and brazil.This is due to cheap labour and more modern efficient factories.Markets are moving to LEDCs so factories are built nearer to them..
CHINA;
China has been the largest steel industries in the world driven by increasing demands for rapid urbanization and many large scale infrastructure project.In 2007 the country produced 495.
Millions tons of crude steel,recording a production growth of 15.7% from the previous year while the chinese consumption of crude steel reached 434.4 million tons rising by 11.9% from the previous year.
Raw material production in china recorded a 2% increase over a period of 110 years.In 2012 china's steel production is expected to touch715 million tons.Despite production production cuts,slackening demand and rising stock china's output for 2012 is expected to be 5.2% up to from 2011.