Developed country

=== Similar terms ===
{{See also|Global North and Global South}}
Terms linked to the concept ''developed country'' include "advanced country", "industrialized country", "more developed country" (MDC), "more economically developed country" (MEDC), "[[North–South divide in the World|Global North]] country", "[[First World|first world]] country", and "post-industrial country". The term industrialized country may be somewhat ambiguous, as [[industrialisation]] is an ongoing process that is hard to define. The first industrialized country was the [[United Kingdom]], followed by [[Belgium]]. Later it spread further to [[Germany]], [[United States]], [[France]] and other [[Western Europe]]an countries. According to some [[economist]]s such as [[Jeffrey Sachs]], however, the current divide between the developed and [[Developing country|developing world]] is largely a phenomenon of the 20th century.<ref name="The End of Poverty">{{cite book |last=Sachs |first=Jeffrey |url=https://archive.org/details/endofpovertyecon0000sach |title=The End of Poverty |publisher=The Penguin Press |year=2005 |isbn=1-59420-045-9 |location=New York, New York |url-access=registration}}</ref>

[[Mathis Wackernagel]] calls the binary labeling of countries as "neither descriptive nor explanatory. It is merely a thoughtless and destructive endorsement of GDP fetish. In reality, there are not two types of countries, but over 200 countries, all faced with the same laws of nature, yet each with unique features."<ref name="Ecological Footprint: Managing Our Biocapacity Budget">{{cite book|last1=Wackernagel|first1=Mathis|url=https://www.newsociety.com/Books/E/Ecological-Footprint|title=Ecological Footprint: Managing Our Biocapacity Budget|last2=Beyers|first2=Bert|publisher=New Society Publishers|year=2019|isbn=978-0-86571-911-8|location=Gabriola Island, BC, Canada|page=132|author-link=Mathis Wackernagel|access-date=20 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191230123431/https://www.newsociety.com/Books/E/Ecological-Footprint|archive-date=30 December 2019|url-status=live}}</ref>

A 2021 analysis proposes the term ''emerged'' to describe markets, economies, or countries that have graduated from [[emerging market]] status, but have not yet reached the level equivalent to developed countries.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Lee|first1=Eun Su|last2=Liu|first2=Wei|last3=Yang|first3=Jing Yu|date=23 September 2021|title=Neither developed nor emerging: Dual paths for outward FDI and home country innovation in emerged market MNCs|url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969593121001438|journal=International Business Review|volume=32 |issue=2 |language=en|page=101925|doi=10.1016/j.ibusrev.2021.101925|s2cid=244268711|issn=0969-5931}}</ref> Multinational corporations from these emerging markets present unique patterns of overseas expansion and knowledge acquisition from foreign countries.