How much gold exists?
All the gold ever mined is a little over 200,000 tonnes, about a 22-meter cube. Here is where it sits today and how much more is still in the ground.
The famous cube
According to estimates from the World Gold Council, the total amount of gold mined in human history is a little over 200,000 tonnes, with recent estimates around 215,000 to 220,000 tonnes. Gold's density is about 19.3 tonnes per cubic meter, so all of it melted into a single cube would measure roughly 22 meters on each side. That is close to the length of a tennis court, or about the height of a seven-story building.
Because gold does not corrode and is almost always recycled, nearly all of that gold still exists. Some has been lost in shipwrecks, buried, or dispersed in tiny amounts in electronics, but the vast majority is still out there as jewelry, bars, coins and reserves.
Who holds it
The World Gold Council divides above-ground stocks into a few broad groups. Shares shift slowly from year to year, but the rough picture is:
| Holder | Approximate share |
|---|---|
| Jewelry | a little under half |
| Private investment (bars, coins, funds) | around a fifth |
| Central banks | around a sixth |
| Other, including industry and technology | around a sixth |
Jewelry is the single biggest use, driven historically by India and China, where gold jewelry plays a large role in weddings and family savings. See gold in jewelry and culture.
How fast new gold is mined
Gold mines worldwide produce roughly 3,500 to 3,700 tonnes of new gold a year in recent years. That adds only about 1.5 to 2 percent to the above-ground total each year, which is one reason the overall supply of gold changes slowly.
Recycled gold, mostly old jewelry plus some from electronics, adds roughly another 1,100 to 1,400 tonnes in a typical recent year, more when prices rise and people sell. See recycling gold.
A large share of all gold has been mined recently. Production rose sharply in the 20th century with industrial methods such as cyanide leaching and huge open pits, so a majority of all gold ever mined has been dug up since around 1950.
How much is left in the ground
Geologists split gold that is still underground into two groups:
- Reserves are gold that has been measured and can be mined profitably with current technology and prices.
- Resources are a wider category that includes gold known or likely to exist but not yet proven economic.
The US Geological Survey estimates global gold reserves in the tens of thousands of tonnes, a figure that changes as prices move and new deposits are found. When the gold price rises, lower-grade rock becomes worth mining and reserves grow on paper; when it falls, reserves shrink.
Why gold feels rare
Iron is mined at a rate of billions of tonnes a year and copper at over 20 million tonnes. Gold, at a few thousand tonnes, is mined at a tiny fraction of those rates. All the gold mined in a year would fit into a cube only about 6 meters on each side.
Earth's core is thought to hold far more gold than the crust ever will, possibly enough to coat the planet's surface, but it is about 2,900 kilometers down and completely out of reach.
Putting it in perspective
- A very large share of all mined gold, often estimated at around a third or more, has come from one region, South Africa's Witwatersrand.
- China, Russia and Australia have been the top producing countries in recent years. See top producing countries.
- A standard Good Delivery bar weighs about 400 troy ounces, roughly 12.4 kilograms, so the world's whole above-ground stock equals well over 15 million such bars.
These numbers are estimates and change as new data arrives. For the market side, read the spot price and the troy ounce.
