To industrialize means to transform an economy or society by building factories and using machines to produce goods on a large scale. When a country industrializes, it shifts from making things mostly by hand (like farmers growing crops or craftspeople weaving cloth) to manufacturing products with powerful machines in large facilities.

The process changes everything about how people live and work. Before America industrialized in the 1800s, most people lived on farms and made what they needed at home or bought from local craftspeople. After industrialization, millions moved to cities to work in factories, producing shoes, textiles, steel, and countless other products faster and cheaper than ever before.

When we say a nation is industrialized, we mean it has developed this manufacturing capacity. Countries like Britain, Germany, Japan, and the United States industrialized at different times, each experiencing massive economic growth but also new challenges like pollution and difficult working conditions in early factories.

The word can also describe the process happening now: “China began to industrialize rapidly in the 1980s.” You might also hear about industrialized nations versus developing nations, referring to countries at different stages of this economic transformation. Even today, some regions continue to industrialize, building the factories and infrastructure that powered other economies generations ago.