Because it drastically changed economic production, the Industrial Revolution transformed the nature of population distribution. The sweeping changes happened immediately because they were so closely linked to the drastic transformation in factory work. Beginning first and most noticeably in the Northern European nations, people moved more and more to large cities that sprang up inland based on rail networks and industrial centers.

The Industrial Revolution truly took off in England's Midlands, especially around the city of Manchester, after a few technological innovations in the textile industry. These made clothing, which used to be made at home expensively, cheap and easy to attain. This revolution caused new factory jobs to be available and reduced the need for people working on farms, which allowed people to leave the countryside and flock to cities.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution began in northern England. It spread fairly quickly to southern England and then spread throughout the continent via Belgium, northern France, and Germany.

By the first half of the twentieth century Germany, the United States of America, Russia, and Japan (along with France and the United Kingdom) were the major industrial centers of the world. China has only recently undergone its own rapid industrial revolution and is currently transitioning towards a consumer-based economy.

The Industrial Revolution arrived in Germany during the 1850s and quickly exploded. By the 1860s Germany’s economy was fully industrial and quickly catching up to Great Britain. In 1871 the German states were finally unified and industrialization progressed more rapidly, by the turn of the century the German industrial capacity was the strongest in the world.

The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain in the first half of the twentieth century and quickly spread to the European continent; however, it did not take off as quickly in Russia. The reasons for this are primarily to do with the Russian social and economic situation compared to the situation in Western Europe at the same time. To put it simply, Russia had no urban working class, only rural serfs who were tied to the land they worked on. In 1861 the serfs were emancipated and Russia began its unwieldy movement towards industrialization. Progress was slow for the first two decades, but by the mid-1880s Russian industry was beginning to takeoff and in the 1890s it exploded as the Russian state deliberately involved itself in the development and ownership of manufacturing centers.

Henry Ford invented the Model-T, the first mass-produced automobile. He also popularized the use of assembly lines and mass production. The concept of the assembly line, and the cheap mass production it provides, is closely associated with Ford to the point where it is sometimes called “Fordism.”

Although all of these industries would rapidly be affected by the Industrial Revolution, the first industry to be affected was the textile industry. A “textile” is a type of hand-produced or machine-produced fabric (like clothes). Before the Industrial Revolution the textile industry was concentrated in small cottage industries that produced unique products, but in small quantities and at a relatively inefficient cost. After the Industrial Revolution the textile industry was transformed. Textile manufacturing was transitioned to factories that produced large quantities of uniform products in an extremely cost effective manner.

The Industrial Revolution began in northern England in the first half of the nineteenth century. The Industrial Revolution involved the use of heavy machinery in manufacturing for the first time. It completely altered the social, economic, and political makeup of Europe, and later much of the rest of the world.

The term “cottage industry” refers to a business that rather than being carried out in a factory, where it would be more profitable but also more uniform, is instead carried out in people’s homes. Cottage industries were preeminent before the Industrial Revolution and remain influential for people who want to make money, or buy products, outside of the commercial factory system.