Mining
All the World’s Metals and Minerals in One Visualization
All the World’s Metals and Minerals in One Visualization
We live in a material world, in that we rely on materials to make our lives better. Without even realizing it, humans consume enormous amounts of metals and minerals with every convenient food package, impressive building, and technological innovation.
Every year, the United States Geological Service (USGS) publishes commodity summaries outlining global mining statistics for over 90 individual minerals and materials. Today’s infographic visualizes the data to reveal the dramatic scale of 2019 non-fuel mineral production.
Read all the way to the bottom; the data will surprise you.
Non-Fuel Minerals: USGS Methodology
A wide variety of minerals can be classified as “non-fuel”, including precious metals, base metals, industrial minerals, and materials used for construction.
Non-fuel minerals are those not used for fuel, such as oil, natural gas and coal. Once non-fuel minerals are used up, there is no replacing them. However, many can be recycled continuously.
The USGS tracked both refinery and mine production of these various minerals. This means that some minerals are the essential ingredients for others on the list. For example, iron ore is critical for steel production, and bauxite ore gets refined into aluminum.
Top 10 Minerals and Metals by Production
Sand and gravel are at the top of the list of non-fuel mineral production.
As these materials are the basic components for the manufacturing of concrete, roads, and buildings, it’s not surprising they take the lead.
Rank | Metal/Mineral | 2019 Production (millions of metric tons) |
---|---|---|
#1 | Sand and Gravel | 50,000 |
#2 | Cement | 4,100 |
#3 | Iron and Steel | 3,200 |
#4 | Iron Ore | 2,500 |
#5 | Bauxite | 500 |
#6 | Lime | 430 |
#7 | Salt | 293 |
#8 | Phosphate Rock | 240 |
#9 | Nitrogen | 150 |
#10 | Gypsum | 140 |
These materials fertilize the food we eat, and they also form the structures we live in and the roads we drive on. They are the bones of the global economy.
Let’s dive into some more specific categories covered on the infographic.
Base Metals
While cement, sand, and gravel may be the bones of global infrastructure, base metals are its lifeblood. Their consumption is an important indicator of the overall health of an economy.
Base metals are non-ferrous, meaning they contain no iron. They are often more abundant in nature and sometimes easier to mine, so their prices are generally lower than precious metals.
Rank | Base Metal | 2019 Production (millions of metric tons) |
---|---|---|
#1 | Aluminum | 64.0 |
#2 | Copper | 20.0 |
#3 | Zinc | 13.0 |
#4 | Lead | 4.5 |
#5 | Nickel | 2.7 |
#6 | Tin | 0.3 |
Base metals are also the critical materials that will help to deliver a green and renewable future. The electrification of everything will require vast amounts of base metals to make everything from batteries to solar cells work.
Precious Metals
Gold and precious metals grab the headlines because of their rarity — and their production shows just how rare they are.
Rank | Precious Metal | 2019 Production (metric tons) |
---|---|---|
#1 | Silver | 27,000 |
#2 | Gold | 3,300 |
#3 | Palladium | 210 |
#4 | Platinum | 180 |
While metals form the structure and veins of the global economy, ultimately it is humans and animals that make the flesh of the world, driving consumption patterns.
A Material World: A Perspective on Scale
The global economy’s appetite for materials has quadrupled since 1970, faster than the population, which only doubled. On average, each human uses more than 13 metric tons of materials per year.
In 2017, it’s estimated that humans consumed 100.6B metric tons of material in total. Half of the total comprises sand, clay, gravel, and cement used for building, along with the other minerals mined to produce fertilizer. Coal, oil, and gas make up 15% of the total, while metal makes up 10%. The final quarter are plants and trees used for food and fuel.
Mining
Ranked: The World’s Top Diamond Mining Countries, by Carats and Value
Who are the leaders in rough diamond production and how much is their diamond output worth?

Ranked: World Diamond Mining By Country, Carat, and Value
Only 22 countries in the world engage in rough diamond production—also known as uncut, raw or natural diamonds—mining for them from deposits within their territories.
This chart, by Sam Parker illustrates the leaders in rough diamond production by weight and value. It uses data from Kimberly Process (an international certification organization) along with estimates by Dr. Ashok Damarupurshad, a precious metals and diamond specialist in South Africa.
Rough Diamond Production, By Weight
Russia takes the top spot as the world’s largest rough diamond producer, mining close to 42 million carats in 2022, well ahead of its peers.
Russia’s large lead over second-place Botswana (24.8 million carats) and third-ranked Canada (16.2 million carats) indicates that the country’s diamond production is circumventing sanctions due to the difficulties in tracing a diamond’s origin.
Here’s a quick breakdown of rough diamond production in the world.
Rank | Country | Rough Diamond Production (Carats) |
---|---|---|
1 | 🇷🇺 Russia | 41,923,910 |
2 | 🇧🇼 Botswana | 24,752,967 |
3 | 🇨🇦 Canada | 16,249,218 |
4 | 🇨🇩 DRC | 9,908,998 |
5 | 🇿🇦 South Africa | 9,660,233 |
6 | 🇦🇴 Angola | 8,763,309 |
7 | 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe | 4,461,450 |
8 | 🇳🇦 Namibia | 2,054,227 |
9 | 🇱🇸 Lesotho | 727,737 |
10 | 🇸🇱 Sierra Leone | 688,970 |
11 | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | 375,533 |
12 | 🇧🇷 Brazil | 158,420 |
13 | 🇬🇳 Guinea | 128,771 |
14 | 🇨🇫 Central African Republic | 118,044 |
15 | 🇬🇾 Guyana | 83,382 |
16 | 🇬🇭 Ghana | 82,500 |
17 | 🇱🇷 Liberia | 52,165 |
18 | 🇨🇮 Cote D'Ivoire | 3,904 |
19 | 🇨🇬 Republic of Congo | 3,534 |
20 | 🇨🇲 Cameroon | 2,431 |
21 | 🇻🇪 Venezuela | 1,665 |
22 | 🇲🇱 Mali | 92 |
Total | 120,201,460 |
Note: South Africa’s figures are estimated.
As with most other resources, (oil, gold, uranium), rough diamond production is distributed unequally. The top 10 rough diamond producing countries by weight account for 99.2% of all rough diamonds mined in 2022.
Diamond Mining, by Country
However, higher carat mined doesn’t necessarily mean better value for the diamond. Other factors like the cut, color, and clarity also influence a diamond’s value.
Here’s a quick breakdown of diamond production by value (USD) in 2022.
Rank | Country | Rough Diamond Value (USD) |
---|---|---|
1 | 🇧🇼 Botswana | $4,975M |
2 | 🇷🇺 Russia | $3,553M |
3 | 🇦🇴 Angola | $1,965M |
4 | 🇨🇦 Canada | $1,877M |
5 | 🇿🇦 South Africa | $1,538M |
6 | 🇳🇦 Namibia | $1,234M |
7 | 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe | $424M |
8 | 🇱🇸 Lesotho | $314M |
9 | 🇸🇱 Sierra Leone | $143M |
10 | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | $110M |
11 | 🇨🇩 DRC | $65M |
12 | 🇧🇷 Brazil | $30M |
13 | 🇱🇷 Liberia | $18M |
14 | 🇨🇫 Central African Republic | $15M |
15 | 🇬🇾 Guyana | $14M |
16 | 🇬🇳 Guinea | $6M |
17 | 🇬🇭 Ghana | $3M |
18 | 🇨🇲 Cameroon | $0.25M |
19 | 🇨🇬 Republic of Congo | $0.20M |
20 | 🇨🇮 Cote D'Ivoire | $0.16M |
21 | 🇻🇪 Venezuela | $0.10M |
22 | 🇲🇱 Mali | $0.06M |
Total | $16,290M |
Note: South Africa’s figures are estimated. Furthermore, numbers have been rounded and may not sum to the total.
Thus, even though Botswana only produced 59% of Russia’s diamond weight in 2022, it had a trade value of nearly $5 billion, approximately 1.5 times higher than Russia’s for the same year.
Another example is Angola, which is ranked 6th in diamond production, but 3rd in diamond value.
Both countries (as well as South Africa, Canada, and Namibia) produce gem-quality rough diamonds versus countries like Russia and the DRC whose diamonds are produced mainly for industrial use.
Which Regions Produce the Most Diamonds in 2022?
Unsurprisingly, Africa is the largest rough diamond producing region, accounting for 51% of output by weight, and 66% by value.
Rank | Region | Share of Rough Diamond Production (%) | Share of Rough Diamond Value (%) |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Africa | 51.4% | 66.4% |
2 | Europe | 34.9% | 32.9% |
3 | North America | 13.5% | 52.8% |
4 | South America | 0.2% | 2.4% |
However diamond mining in Africa is a relatively recent phenomenon, fewer than 200 years old. Diamonds had been discovered—and prized—as far back as 2,000 years ago in India, later on spreading west to Egyptian pharaohs and the Roman Empire.
By the start of the 20th century, diamond production on a large scale took off: first in South Africa, and decades later in other African countries. In fact between 1889–1959, Africa produced 98% of the world’s diamonds.
And in the latter half of the 20th century, the term blood diamond evolved from diamonds mined in African conflict zones used to finance insurgency or crime.
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