Infrastructure
Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise ,[1] or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function.[2] It can be generally defined as the set of interconnected structural elements that provide framework supporting an entire structure of development. It is an important term for judging a country or region's development.
The term typically refers to the technical structures that support a society, such as roads, bridges, water supply, sewers, electrical grids, telecommunications, and so forth, and can be defined as "the physical components of interrelated systems providing commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions.
Viewed functionally, infrastructure facilitates the production of goods and services, and also the distribution of finished products to markets, as well as basic social services such as schools and hospitals; for example, roads enable the transport of raw materials to a factory.[4] In military parlance, the term refers to the buildings and permanent installations necessary for the support, redeployment, and operation of military forces.[5] Research by anthropologists [6][7] shows the social importance and multiple ways that infrastructures shape human society and vice versa.
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary,[8] the word infrastructure has been used in English since at least 1927, originally meaning "The installations that form the basis for any operation or system".[9]
Other sources, such as the Oxford English Dictionary, trace the word's origins to earlier usage, originally applied in a military sense. The word was imported from French, where it means subgrade, the native material underneath a constructed pavement or railway. The word is a combination of the Latin prefix "infra", meaning "below", and "structure". The military use of the term achieved currency in the United States after the
The term typically refers to the technical structures that support a society, such as roads, bridges, water supply, sewers, electrical grids, telecommunications, and so forth, and can be defined as "the physical components of interrelated systems providing commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions.
Viewed functionally, infrastructure facilitates the production of goods and services, and also the distribution of finished products to markets, as well as basic social services such as schools and hospitals; for example, roads enable the transport of raw materials to a factory.[4] In military parlance, the term refers to the buildings and permanent installations necessary for the support, redeployment, and operation of military forces.[5] Research by anthropologists [6][7] shows the social importance and multiple ways that infrastructures shape human society and vice versa.
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary,[8] the word infrastructure has been used in English since at least 1927, originally meaning "The installations that form the basis for any operation or system".[9]
Other sources, such as the Oxford English Dictionary, trace the word's origins to earlier usage, originally applied in a military sense. The word was imported from French, where it means subgrade, the native material underneath a constructed pavement or railway. The word is a combination of the Latin prefix "infra", meaning "below", and "structure". The military use of the term achieved currency in the United States after the