Gold mining is a global business with operations on every continent, except Antarctica, and gold is extracted from mines of widely varying types and scale. At a country level, China was the largest producer in the world in 2022 and accounted for around 10 per cent of total global production.
What Country Has the Most Gold? The country with the most gold is the United States, with 8,133 metric tons in the American gold reserve. This amounts to a value of $480.84 billion, going by the price of gold at the beginning of January 2023.
The country with the purest gold in the world is Switzerland, a country known for paying attention to quality. Below, the precious metals experts from First National Bullion and Coin, the best place to buy gold in Scottsdale, explain why this particular country has an affinity for pure gold.
The highest karat of gold is 24K gold. 24 karat gold is 100% pure and doesn't contain any other metals, making it the purest gold available.
Gold reserves - additional information
The United States has the largest gold reserve, with more than 8,000 metric tons of gold. This was more than twice the gold reserves of Germany and more than three times the gold reserves of Italy and France.
1st place: Muruntau mine, Uzbekistan
These unusual expanse is due to the nature of the gold deposits, located primarily in concentrated accumulations of quartz rock, so-called veins. The output of the Muruntau mine was over 51 tons in 2010, increased to more than 62 tons by 2020 and 82 tonnes in 2021.
China may invade Taiwan, or it may not. Either way, there is financial uncertainty. Precious metals are the counterbalance to that uncertainty. Russia, China, Brazil, Egypt, India, Turkey, Qatar, and many other countries are stockpiling gold to overthrow the Dollar and ensure sovereignty.
Turkey's gold imports have increased in recent years as more Turks buy bullion to protect their wealth from soaring inflation and a weakening domestic currency. The country had a current account deficit of $48.8 billion last year, largely because of the high amount of bullion entering the country.
More than one-half of Russia's hard rock gold resources occur in the Maiskoye, Natalkinskoe, Nezhdaninskoe, Olimpiada, and the Sukhoi Log deposits in Siberia and in the Russian Far East.
LONDON, May 25 (Reuters) - The United Arab Emirates has become a key trade hub for Russian gold since Western sanctions over Ukraine cut Russia's more traditional export routes, Russian customs records show.
Australia and Russia hold the largest reserves of gold
Australia and Russia hold a large share of the world's gold mine reserves, accounting for 8,400 metric tons and 6,800 metric tons, respectively. Worldwide, the production of gold reached an estimated 3,100 metric tons in 2022.
About 244,000 metric tons of gold has been discovered to date (187,000 metric tons historically produced plus current underground reserves of 57,000 metric tons). Most of that gold has come from just three countries: China, Australia, and South Africa.
"The largest accumulation of gold in human history is located deep underneath the heart of Manhattan's financial district, at the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Some 80 feet beneath sidewalk level, the Fed's special vault is built into the bedrock and entrusted with deposits from central banks across the globe.
Hong Kong. Hong Kong is the country with the cheapest gold in the world. Banks are plentiful here with competitive premiums on gold coins – making investing easy to do without breaking the bank. There are several places you can buy physical gold in Hong Kong.
Best Comprehensive Offering APMEX (American Precious Metals Exchange) With more than 46,000 products to offer, APMEX (the largest online precious metals dealer globally) makes our list as the online gold dealer with the best comprehensive offering.
Topping the list is Algeria, boasting the largest gold reserves on the continent, with a robust holding of 174 metric tons. South Africa closely follows, with official gold reserves reaching an impressive 125 metric tons.
Gold and other elements will run out by 2050
According to him, “in this scenario it is possible that the reserves of some of these elements will be exhausted in 2050 — such as gold and antimony — or in less than 100 years — in the case of molybdenum and zinc.”
Some of the veins produce up to one quarter of an ounce of gold per ton of rock. What makes Dahlonega gold so different from other gold found around the world is the purity. Dahlonega has the purest gold in the world, which is 98.7 percent pure.
Satellite imaging has shown that the top 10 centimetres of regolith (moon soil) at the south pole of the moon appear to hold about 100 times more gold than the richest mines on earth. Only a few years ago, most geologists would have laughed at the idea of mining anything from our moon.
The first person or civilization to discover gold is the Ancient Egyptians. They mined gold in Nubia around 2450 BC. An Egyptian alchemist named Zosimos was the first to find pure gold (24 centuries before Columbus reached the Americas).
China and Russia were the biggest buyers. Central banks bought 145.5 tonnes of gold over the January-March period, 68% more than a year earlier. It followed purchases of 651.5 tonnes in 2018, the most since 1967.
However, Russia's share in Chinese gold purchases remains small. The main supplier of gold to China is Switzerland, with sales in 2021 totaling over US$34 billion. Rounding out the top five suppliers to China are Canada, South Africa, Australia, and Hong Kong.
The holders of the largest gold reserves in the world are the U.S. (with 8,133.5 tons), Germany (with 3,359.1 tons), Italy (with 2,451.8 tons), France (with 2,436.5 tons), and Russia (with 2,301.6 tons).