But hold your horses—Boeing isn’t the only giant in town. Out in China, there are factories so huge they make the Everett factory look like a backyard shed. The Mitsubishi Electric plant in Nagoya is famous for making elevators, escalators, and all those things that make your life slightly easier.
Then there’s the Foxconn industrial complex in Shenzhen, which assembles iPhones and iPads. They call it “Foxconn City,” and it has its own dorms, hospitals, and fire stations. It basically operates like a small country that somehow makes your Instagram feed work.
I once read that the factory’s population swells to over 200,000 workers during peak season. That’s more people than live in many small cities. Imagine the traffic jam at 5 p.m., or worse, the queue for the restroom.
What This Means for Your Living Room
When you yawn and unlock your phone to scroll TikTok for ten minutes, you’re touching a product that passed through these enormous facilities. The screen that lights up your face was handled by machines and humans in a space larger than most suburbs. It’s humbling, really.
Think about your couch, your TV, your microwave, your sneakers. Everything you own had a journey that involved at least one gigantic factory. Your jeans were probably sewn in a factory that you could photograph from space.
In pictures: the world's largest factories | lovemoney.com
