Furniture Industry

furniture industry, all the companies and activities involved in the design, manufacture, distribution, and sale of functional and decorative objects of household equipment.

The modern manufacture of furniture, as distinct from its design, is a major mass-production industry in Europe, the U.S., and other advanced regions. It is very largely a 20th-century industry, its development having awaited the growth of a mass consumer market as well as the development of the mass-production technique. Earlier furniture making was a handicraft, going back to the most ancient civilizations.