MDCs – The world’s wealthier countries. The 33 countries (including the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and all the western European countries) in the MDC group are wealthy and industrially-developed. They tend to have temperate climates and fertile soils, located in the Southern Hemisphere where the climate is less favorable and soils are less fertile.
About 23 percent of the world’s population lives in the more developed countries, but they consume about 80 percent of its mineral and energy resources.