The term application area is used to describe a category of projects that have a number of significant components in common. However, these components are not fundamentally required, needed, or present in all similar projects. These application areas are typically delineated in terms of either the type of customer, which are typically sorted by group, or by product, which are sorted by type. The customer industries include areas such as governmental, commercial, or a delineation between internal vs. external customers. The types of products can de grouped into application areas such as similarities or similarities in cmethods. Another application area in which these projects can be grouped is industry sector. Some typically included industry sectors are the automotive industry, the aerospace industry, and information technology.
This term is defined in the 3rd and the 4th edition of the PMBOK.