Gold · 1900—2025
Who Mines the Most Gold?
Which countries mine the most gold? An animated ranking of the top 10 gold-producing countries every year from 1900 to 2025, from South Africa's century at the top to China's rise in 2007. Data from the US Geological Survey.
Tonnes of gold per year · Historical records · see methodology
Annual snapshots. Select a year to explore how the ranking changes.
The 10 biggest gold producers in 2025
| Rank | Country | Mine production | Change in a year | Years in the top 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  China | 380 t | +3 t | 58 |
| 2 |  Russia | 310 t | 0 t | 35 |
| 3 |  Australia | 280 t | −4 t | 126 |
| 4 |  Canada | 200 t | 0 t | 126 |
| 5 |  United States | 160 t | −3 t | 126 |
| 6 |  Ghana | 150 t | +1 t | 84 |
| 7 |  Mexico | 140 t | 0 t | 72 |
| 8 |  Kazakhstan | 130 t | 0 t | 7 |
| 9 |  Uzbekistan | 130 t | +1 t | 29 |
| 10 |  Peru | 110 t | +2 t | 29 |
Questions and answers
Which country mines the most gold?
China mined the most gold in 2025, about 380 tonnes, ahead of Russia (310 t) and Australia (280 t). The 2025 figures are first estimates by the US Geological Survey.
How long was South Africa the world's top gold producer?
South Africa was the world's largest gold producer every year from 1905 to 2006, 102 years in a row. Its output peaked at 1,000 tonnes in 1970, then declined; it has been out of the top 10 since 2024.
When did China overtake South Africa?
In 2007, when China mined 275 tonnes against 253 for South Africa. China has been number one every year since, with a peak of 454 tonnes in 2016.
Where is the Soviet Union in the ranking?
The Soviet Union appears from 1923 to its breakup in 1991. It was the world's second largest producer, behind South Africa, in 36 of those years (1936-1937, 1940-1941, 1944-1946 and 1962-1990), and peaked at 304 tonnes in 1989. Since 1992 its former republics are ranked separately: Russia is second in 2025.
Where do these figures come from?
The ranking counts gold produced by mines, including gold recovered as a by-product of other metals, in tonnes of fine gold. Each year comes from a single edition of the US Government's annual review of world gold production: the Director of the Mint for 1900 and 1901, the US Geological Survey and US Bureau of Mines yearbooks from 1902 to 2023, and the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 for 2024 and 2025 (2025 is an estimate).
From 1900 to 1934 those yearbooks give a single figure for Africa and one for Australasia; the share of each country comes from the British Imperial Institute's mineral statistics for 1913 to 1934 and from the Clio Infra historical database for 1900 to 1912. For China in 1977-1980, which the yearbooks themselves call a very conservative estimate, the figures of the British Geological Survey are used instead. Old country names follow today's map (the Gold Coast is shown as Ghana, Southern Rhodesia as Zimbabwe), except for states that later split up: the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and Korea before 1945.
The Soviet Union kept its gold output secret. Its figures come from Soviet archives published by historians since the 1990s and from official data released by the Soviet Ministry of Finance in 1991. Years with no published Soviet figure (1926-1927, 1951-1952, 1954-1959, 1961-1974 and 1976-1984) are drawn as a straight line between the nearest known years, so they do not show the real ups and downs. Every figure was checked against independent sources: Clio Infra up to 1969, the Imperial Institute for 1913-1934 and the British Geological Survey from 1970.