Reviewed September 2026 against USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 and MINING.COM’s ranked mine production data.

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Top 20 Gold Mines in the World: Ranked by Output

By Farmonaut Research & Content Team · Published 3 December 2025 · Updated 15 October 2026

Global gold mine production reached roughly 3,300 tonnes in 2025, according to the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026. Nevada Gold Mines, the joint venture between Barrick and Newmont in Nevada, was the single largest producing complex at 2,595 thousand ounces (koz), ahead of Uzbekistan’s Muruntau mine at 1,708 koz and Russia’s Olimpiada mine at 1,357 koz, per MINING.COM’s ranked list of the world’s top 20 gold mines. The rest of this page ranks the mines and the countries behind them, with a table you can scan in seconds and a calculator to turn any mine’s output into a rough revenue figure at today’s gold price.

This article covers the top 20 gold mines in the world by production volume, the top 10 gold-producing countries, and the major lithium mines that increasingly share ownership groups and processing infrastructure with gold operations. Figures are anchored to USGS and MINING.COM data with the vintage stated next to each number, because production rankings shift every year as mines deplete, expand, or come online.

The Top 20 Gold Mines in the World

Four mines in the current ranking have confirmed 2025 production figures from MINING.COM’s top-20 list: Nevada Gold Mines (USA) at 2,595 koz, Muruntau (Uzbekistan) at 1,708 koz, Olimpiada (Russia) at 1,357 koz, and Grasberg (Indonesia) at 937 koz. That data set does not publish exact figures for positions 5 through 20 in the brief available for this refresh, so the list below names the mines widely reported at that scale — South Deep, Lihir, Cortez, Carlin Trend, Boddington, Pueblo Viejo, Cadia Valley, Tarkwa, Veladero, Porgera, Kibali, Canadian Malartic, Yanacocha, Fosterville, and Chuquicamata — without assigning them a precise rank or tonnage that isn’t sourced. For the full ranked table with current-year figures, MINING.COM republishes its top-20 list annually; check MINING.COM’s ranked list directly for the latest edition.

1. Nevada Gold Mines, USA — The world’s largest gold mine complex by 2025 output at 2,595 koz, a joint venture between Barrick and Newmont spanning the Carlin Trend, Cortez, and other Nevada properties. Nevada alone accounted for an estimated 64% of total US gold output in 2025.
2. Muruntau Mine, Uzbekistan — The world’s largest open-pit gold mine by area, producing 1,708 koz in 2025 and anchoring Uzbekistan’s state-run gold sector.
3. Olimpiada Mine, Russia — Operated by Polyus, Russia’s largest gold producer; Olimpiada delivered 1,357 koz in 2025, underpinning a national industry that contributed to Russia’s 345-tonne 2025 output.
4. Grasberg Mine, Indonesia — A combined gold-copper operation producing 937 koz of gold in 2025, among the richest gold-bearing ore bodies mined anywhere.
5. South Deep Mine, South Africa — The deepest gold mine in the world, central to South Africa’s gold-mining employment base.
6. Lihir Mine, Papua New Guinea — High-grade ore combined with geothermal power use for part of its energy demand.
7. Cortez Mine, Nevada, USA — Part of the Nevada Gold Mines joint venture; one of the more automated extraction sites in North America.
8. Carlin Trend, Nevada, USA — A district of multiple mines forming the largest contiguous gold-producing trend in the Western Hemisphere; also part of the Nevada Gold Mines venture.
9. Boddington Mine, Australia — Australia’s largest gold mine by volume, using renewable power and water-recycling systems on site.
10. Pueblo Viejo, Dominican Republic — A high-grade processing operation and one of the largest gold mines in the Americas.
11. Cadia Valley Operations, Australia — Uses block-caving and advanced processing for high recovery rates.
12. Tarkwa Mine, Ghana — An open-pit mine central to Ghana’s 187-tonne 2025 national gold output, the sixth-largest of any country that year.
13. Veladero, Argentina — Notable for water-use management programs in an arid operating environment.
14. Porgera, Papua New Guinea — A joint-venture mine that is a major contributor to PNG’s export economy.
15. Kibali, Democratic Republic of Congo — A deep underground and open-pit combination mine using automated ore-haulage systems.
16. Canadian Malartic, Canada — The largest gold mine in Canada, located in Quebec, contributing to Canada’s 213-tonne 2025 national output.
17. Yanacocha, Peru — Among South America’s largest gold mines, with underground expansion projects extending mine life.
18. Fosterville, Australia — Known for exceptionally high-grade underground ore in Victoria.
19. Chuquicamata, Chile — Primarily a copper mine, but its scale makes gold and silver by-product output significant.
20. La Herradura, Mexico — An open-pit and heap-leach gold mine contributing to Mexico’s gold sector.

Why the list changes every year: mine rankings move for three reasons — ore grade decline as pits deepen, new expansions coming online (Pueblo Viejo’s expansion is a recent example), and gold price swings that make marginal ore economic to mine. At $3,300 per troy ounce, the 2025 US average price per USGS, mines with lower-grade stockpiles become worth processing that weren’t at $1,800 gold five years earlier. That is the mechanism to watch, not the specific rank order, when you’re checking whether this list still holds a year from now.

Comparison Table: Leading Gold & Lithium Mines Worldwide

The table below combines confirmed 2025 figures with widely reported operating details. Figures marked with a source are directly sourced from the research base for this page; others reflect the mine’s general scale and should be verified against the operator’s own reporting before being used for financial decisions.

For mine-by-mine figures beyond the four confirmed above, the World Gold Council’s country-level dataset and MINING.COM’s annual ranked list are the two sources to check directly rather than relying on a static table — see the calculator note below for how to keep this current.

For mining professionals and businesses, leveraging satellite-powered analytics is now easier than ever with Farmonaut’s Mining API. Integrate advanced real-time monitoring and resource management into your platforms using Farmonaut’s Developer Documentation!

Calculator: Estimate a Mine’s Annual Revenue

Use the four confirmed 2025 production figures above, or plug in any mine’s reported ounces, against a gold price you set yourself to see roughly what a mine’s annual output is worth before costs.

Assumptions: this is a simple output-times-price estimate before royalties, taxes, hedging, and by-product credits (such as Grasberg’s copper output), so it will not match a mine’s reported revenue exactly. All-in sustaining cost (AISC) is an operator-reported figure that varies by mine; leave it blank at zero to see gross revenue only. The default gold price of $3,300/oz reflects the USGS-reported US average for 2025 — replace it with a live spot price for a current estimate.

Top 10 Gold-Producing Countries

Ranked by 2025 mine production per USGS and Statista’s compilation of USGS data, the leading gold-producing nations are led by two BRICS economies that together account for roughly half of world output — BRICS nations held a 50% share of global gold production in 2025, per Statista.

1. China — 384.3 tonnes in 2025, the world’s largest single national producer, per USGS data compiled by Statista.
2. Russia — 345 tonnes in 2025, the second-largest producer, anchored by mines like Olimpiada.
3. Australia — 293.2 tonnes in 2025, the third-largest producer, with output concentrated in Western Australia.
4. Canada — 213 tonnes in 2025, led by Ontario and Quebec operations including Canadian Malartic.
5. United States — 160 tonnes in 2025 per USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, with Nevada responsible for an estimated 64% of the national total and Alaska a further 22%.
6. Ghana — 187 tonnes in 2025, the sixth-largest producer and Africa’s top gold-mining nation.
7. Indonesia — Output driven largely by the Grasberg complex’s 937 koz of 2025 gold production.
8. Uzbekistan — Relies on Muruntau’s 1,708 koz 2025 output as the core of national production.
9. South Africa — Once the world’s dominant supplier; South Deep remains its deepest and most technically complex mine.
10. Peru — A major South American producer anchored by Yanacocha and other Andean operations.

How to get the current-year version of this ranking: USGS publishes its Mineral Commodity Summaries every January, covering the prior year’s production. The USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 gold report is the authoritative source for country-level tonnage and US pricing; the World Gold Council also republishes country data each June via its Gold Production by Country dataset, with the next update expected in June 2027 covering 2026 figures.

How Is Gold Formed?

Gold deposits form through two broad mechanisms that determine how a mine extracts it. Hydrothermal deposits form when superheated, mineral-rich water moves through fractures in the Earth’s crust and deposits gold as it cools — this is the mechanism behind vein-hosted deposits like those in the Carlin Trend. Placer deposits form when weathering and erosion free gold from its host rock and rivers concentrate the denser particles downstream, the process behind historic alluvial mining. A precise current breakdown of what share of 2025 global production came from each mechanism is not published in the sources available for this refresh; USGS commodity summaries report production by country and mine type rather than by formation mechanism, so a reader wanting that split should consult a geological reference such as a USGS mineral deposit model publication rather than a production summary.

The practical distinction that matters for the mines on this list: open-pit operations like Muruntau and Boddington typically mine disseminated, lower-grade ore bodies formed by hydrothermal processes over large volumes, while underground high-grade mines like Fosterville target narrower, richer veins from the same broad mechanism. Heap leaching, used at La Herradura, is a processing technique for low-grade disseminated ore rather than a description of how the gold formed.

Lithium Mines in the World: Supply Chain for Batteries

Lithium mines increasingly share ownership groups, financing structures, and even satellite-monitoring vendors with the gold mines above — several of the companies operating both metals use the same environmental-compliance and exploration tooling. The mines below are the ones most frequently cited as the largest by capacity.

Key Lithium Mines & Producers

• Greenbushes, Australia — Widely reported as the world’s largest single-site lithium mine by spodumene concentrate output, jointly owned by Tianqi, Albemarle, and IGO.
• Salar de Atacama, Chile — A brine-extraction operation supplying lithium carbonate, operated by SQM and Albemarle under Chilean government contracts.
• Mount Marion, Australia — A spodumene mine operated by Mineral Resources Ltd, expanding capacity as EV battery demand grows.
• Cauchari-Olaroz, Argentina — Part of South America’s “Lithium Triangle” brine region, operated by Lithium Americas.
• Thacker Pass, USA (Nevada) — Lithium Americas’ Nevada project, positioned as a domestic US lithium source for battery and defense-sector supply chains, with major output ramp-up expected through 2025 and 2026.
• Sal de Vida, Argentina — Another Lithium Triangle brine project focused on lower-carbon extraction methods.
• Altura, Australia — A spodumene operation that has scaled capacity alongside renewable-powered processing.

Exact 2025 tonnage figures for these lithium operations were not part of the verified research base for this refresh. For current lithium production data by mine and country, the US Geological Survey publishes a dedicated lithium chapter in its annual Mineral Commodity Summaries alongside the gold chapter cited above, and the World Gold Council’s dataset does not cover lithium — check USGS directly for that commodity.

Did you know? Satellite monitoring and AI-based analytics are increasingly used to track exploration progress, map new deposits, and verify environmental compliance at both gold and lithium mines, including several named above.

Trends Reshaping Gold and Lithium Mining

Three forces are changing how the mines on this list operate and how their output is valued.

Gold Price and Marginal Ore

The US average gold price reached $3,300 per troy ounce in 2025, per USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 — a level that makes lower-grade stockpiles and previously uneconomic zones worth processing at operations like Boddington and Cortez. When the price moves, so does which ore counts as reserve, which is one reason mine-by-mine production rankings shift year to year even without any new discovery.

Company-Level Consolidation

Newmont reported 5.9 million attributable ounces of gold production in 2025, making it the largest gold-mining company by output; its portfolio spans Boddington, Lihir, Cadia Valley, Yanacocha, and a share of the Nevada Gold Mines joint venture — meaning several mines on this list report through the same corporate parent even where operating names differ.

Satellite Monitoring and Compliance

Automation, AI-driven exploration tools, and satellite-based environmental monitoring are now standard practice at the larger operations on this list, driven by regulatory reporting requirements and investor ESG scrutiny rather than novelty. Water recycling, tailings monitoring, and real-time emissions tracking are the specific capabilities most frequently added.

The Role of Satellite Technology in Mining (Farmonaut)

As the mines on this list expand in scale and face tighter compliance reporting, satellite technology has become a standard tool for monitoring, planning, and optimizing mining operations. Farmonaut supports mining, agriculture, and infrastructure operators with:

• Satellite-Based Monitoring: Real-time insight into mineral sites — vegetation health, depletion rates, and operational efficiency — to help operators track yields and environmental compliance.
• AI Advisory Systems: Our Jeevn AI system analyzes satellite datasets to support operational decisions and flag hazards at both large-scale and regional mine sites.
• Blockchain-Based Traceability: End-to-end traceability for mining supply chains, supporting transparency for gold and lithium output.
• Fleet and Resource Optimization: Real-time tracking of vehicle movements and machinery, reducing costs and emissions across remote gold and lithium sites.
• Environmental Impact Tracking: Live carbon footprint assessments and automated reporting to support ESG requirements.

Farmonaut solutions integrate with mining operations globally, whether via carbon footprint tracking, blockchain traceability tools for supply chains, or fleet management modules for on-site resources.

Financial institutions and mining operators can also use satellite-verified resource loan and insurance applications to support financing for mining-adjacent land and infrastructure projects.

Explore Farmonaut’s subscription tiers below, or reach out via the mobile and web applications to see how satellite intelligence applies to your operation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion: A Ranking Worth Rechecking Annually

The mines and countries on this page — Nevada Gold Mines, Muruntau, Olimpiada, and Grasberg at the top of the mine ranking, and China, Russia, and Australia leading the country ranking — reflect confirmed 2025 data from USGS and MINING.COM. Both rankings move year to year with ore grade, gold price, and new project completions, which is why the durable part of this page is not the specific numbers but the sources: USGS’s January Mineral Commodity Summaries for country and US pricing data, and MINING.COM’s annual top-20 list for mine-level rankings.

For gold and lithium mine operators tracking output, compliance, and environmental impact day to day, Farmonaut’s satellite tools are built to support that work directly, from exploration through to ESG reporting.

Explore the data further, or connect with Farmonaut to see how satellite intelligence applies to your mining or minerals operation.