Every gold district in the world has been mapped by someone: a geological survey, a mines department, a land office or a prospector a century ago. Most of that mapping is free if you know where to look. This guide covers the government gold maps worth downloading in the United States, Australia, Canada and Africa, how to load them into Google Earth, how to read old mine maps, and how to check whether a map is accurate enough to plan fieldwork around.
Sources USGS · GSWA · NTGS · OGS · GGSA
Formats KML · SHP · CSV · GeoTIFF
Markets USA · Australia · Canada · Africa
A gold map is any map that shows where gold has been found, mined or is geologically likely: mineral occurrence databases, old mine symbols on topographic sheets, geological maps of the host rocks, and claim or tenement maps that show who holds the ground. The best ones are published free by government geological surveys. A good gold map tells you where to look; it never tells you how much gold is there.
Try it: Old gold map position-error check →
That distinction matters most to licence holders and investors. A dot on a gold deposit map might be a producing mine, a drilled resource, a single rock sample from 1935, or a prospector’s note that was never checked. Government databases usually say which, if you read the record and not just the symbol. This guide shows where those records live and how to read them. Maps are the first step of a longer programme, set out stage by stage in our guide to mineral exploration stages, methods and costs.
“The USGS has scanned more than 178,000 topographic maps published between 1884 and 2006, all free to download.”
On almost every government gold map, a gold icon covers everything from a major mine to an unverified mention. Open the record and check its status, the date and the reference before you give it any weight.
What a gold map can and cannot tell you
People searching for a gold finding map usually want one of four things. Each is a different kind of map, from a different source, and they answer different questions.
| Map type | What it shows | Typical free source | What it cannot tell you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mineral occurrence / gold deposit map | Points for mines, prospects and occurrences, with commodity and status | USGS MRDS, GSWA MINEDEX, NT MODAT, Ontario OMI | Grade or size unless the record states a sourced resource |
| Old gold mine maps (topographic) | Shafts, adits, prospect pits and tailings as drawn on old sheets | USGS topoView, USGS USMIN mine features | What was produced, or whether the working found anything |
| Geological gold maps | Rock units, faults and contacts that host gold | State and national geological surveys | Where in a favourable unit the gold actually is |
| Claim and tenement maps | Who holds the ground, and what is open | BLM MLRS, state and national cadastres | Anything about the geology |
A useful gold prospecting map is usually all four layered together: occurrences over geology, with old workings and current tenure on top. The rest of this guide goes through where to get each layer. For the geology layer itself, our guide to 3D geologic maps and reading depth from dip goes further.
Free government gold maps in the United States
USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS)
The USGS Mineral Resources Data System is the broadest free gold deposit map for the US and, with caveats, the world. It holds reports on metallic and nonmetallic mineral resources with deposit name, location, commodity, geology, production, reserves, resources and references. The USGS is candid about its limits: it calls MRDS “large, complex, and somewhat problematic”, stopped systematic updates in 2011, and grades records from A (most information) down to E (generally lacking references). Outside the United States, it says MRDS remains the best collection it has; for Alaska, it points users to the Alaska Resource Data File instead.
MRDS downloads as CSV (about 23 MB) or a shapefile, and it can be streamed into GIS software through the USGS WMS and WFS services. Filter on commodity “gold”, then sort by record grade. The A and B records are the ones with enough geology to be worth reading.
USMIN mine features: old gold mine maps, digitised
The USGS USMIN mine features dataset takes the mine symbols off historical USGS topographic maps and turns them into points: prospect pits, shafts and adits, quarries, open pits, tailings piles and ponds. It downloads as KML files by state for Google Earth, as shapefiles, or as a national geodatabase. For old gold mine maps this is the fastest route, because someone has already done the digitising. A cluster of shafts and prospect pits along one line on the map is often a vein or shear that was worked in the past.
topoView: the scanned historical sheets
USGS topoView serves high-resolution scans of more than 178,000 older US topographic maps, originally published on paper between 1884 and 2006, free of charge. Old gold maps from the early editions often show mining camps, ditches, flumes and workings that later editions dropped. Comparing editions of the same quadrangle is one of the cheapest research tools a US explorer has.
The US accuracy standard applies to well-defined points such as road intersections and survey monuments. A shaft or prospect-pit symbol drawn by hand in the field decades ago may be less accurate than the standard, not more. Always check the ground.
Claim maps from the BLM
Before any fieldwork on federal land, check who holds it. The BLM’s Mineral & Land Records System is the official record of mining claims, and its map shows active and closed claims. The BLM’s page on locating a claim lists the 19 states with federally administered land open to claims and the areas withdrawn from mineral entry, such as national parks and wilderness. Our BLM claims map guide goes through the fees and staking steps.
Gold maps online in Australia
Australia’s state geological surveys publish some of the best free gold maps online anywhere, with deposit databases, geology and current tenure in the same viewer.
Western Australia: MINEDEX and GeoVIEW.WA
The Department of Mines, Petroleum and Exploration describes MINEDEX as Western Australia’s database of mines, mineral deposits, prospects and project owners, free with no login or registration. It records location, geology, commodities, ownership, operating status, resource estimates and production, and even an abandoned-mine inventory. Spatial searches run through GeoVIEW.WA, where the same deposits can be laid over geology, geophysics and live tenements. For tenure and application steps, see our WA mining tenements guide.
Northern Territory: STRIKE and MODAT (NT gold maps)
The Northern Territory’s STRIKE map viewer covers geoscience data and mineral tenure across the territory. Its Mineral Occurrences Database, MODAT, is also published on the NT Government open data portal as KML, SHP, CSV and MapInfo files under a Creative Commons licence. Each record can include deposit size, host rock, structure, alteration, past production and references, captured by geologists from company reports and fieldwork.
The other states
New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland run their own survey portals with the same pattern: a deposit layer, a geology layer and a tenure layer. The Google Earth routine below works the same way on each of them.
Gold deposit maps in Canada and Africa
Ontario and the other provinces
The Ontario Mineral Inventory holds more than 19,000 records of mineral occurrences with location, geological environment and exploration history, classified from simple occurrence through developed prospect to producing mine. It downloads as a database or shapefile and can be viewed in Google Earth through the OGSEarth page. Given that Ontario produces more gold than any other province, it is the most-used gold map in Canada. British Columbia’s MINFILE and the other provincial systems work in a similar way; our round-up of the BC Geological Survey and other agencies’ free geology data lists them.
Ghana and West Africa
In Ghana, the geology is mapped by the Ghana Geological Survey Authority and the licences by the Minerals Commission, whose public mining cadastre map shows mineral rights. A 2025 Heliyon study used the survey’s geology shapefile to map the three gold-hosting rock groups, the Tarkwaian and the Birimian sediments and volcanics, over 55,723 km², about 23% of the country. That is a textbook example of a geological gold map built from free government data. Licence steps are in our Ghana Minerals Commission guide.
Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia, Nigeria and several other African countries publish cadastre maps online, and many have national geological surveys that sell or share regional geology. The public cadastre maps show tenure only. Geology usually has to be requested or bought from the survey, and occurrence data is patchier than in Australia or Canada.
Gold maps in Google Earth and Google Maps
Google Earth is the easiest place to stack these layers, and many agencies publish KML precisely for it. You do not need GIS software to build a decent gold map. A workable routine:
- Load the occurrences. Open the USMIN state KML, the NT MODAT KML or OGSEarth for Ontario. Turn off everything except gold records.
- Add your boundary. Import your licence or claim as a KML/KMZ or draw it as a polygon.
- Drape a geology or old topographic sheet. Use an agency’s KML overlay or a georeferenced scan as an image overlay, and adjust transparency.
- Use historical imagery. Google Earth’s historical imagery slider shows old pits, tracks and disturbance that may no longer be visible.
- Mark and export. Place markers on the targets you want to visit and export them as KML for a phone or GPS.
Google Maps is fine for access and roads, but searches like “google maps gold” or “g maps gold” will not find deposits, because Google Maps does not carry government occurrence layers. Google Earth, with those layers loaded, is the tool that does the job.
Most agency KML is in WGS84 latitude and longitude, but many old reports, claim descriptions and scanned maps use local grids or older datums. Convert everything to one system before you compare a gold occurrence with your boundary, or a 100 m shift can move a target off your ground.
Old gold map position-error check
Assumptions: the map tolerance uses the US National Map Accuracy Standards: 1/30 inch on the map for scales larger than 1:20,000 and 1/50 inch for 1:20,000 or smaller, for 90% of well-defined points (USGS Fact Sheet 171-99). The two errors are combined as a root sum of squares. Hand-drawn mine symbols may be worse than the standard. Use this only to judge whether a symbol can be trusted to fall inside your boundary; confirm on the ground with GPS.
How to read old gold maps and gold mine maps
Old gold maps come in three kinds: early topographic sheets, mine plans and district maps from old reports, and hand-drawn claim sketches. The first kind is the easiest to find. The USGS fact sheet on map accuracy explains the standard those sheets were made to: at 1:24,000, 90% of well-defined points must be within 1/50 inch on the map, which is 40 feet or 12.2 metres on the ground. At 1:250,000 the same rule allows about 127 metres.
Three habits help with every old gold map:
- Check the edition date and survey date. Many sheets were compiled from older surveys, so the workings shown may be decades older than the print date.
- Look for lines, not points. Shafts and pits strung along a straight line usually mark a vein or structure. That trend is often more useful than any single symbol.
- Separate prospects from mines. A prospect pit means someone dug; it does not mean they found gold. Tailings, mills and large dumps are stronger evidence of production.
Mine plans from old company or government reports are the most valuable and the hardest to use, because they often sit on local mine grids. Georeference them against features that still exist, like shaft collars and road junctions, and record how many control points you used.
“Ontario’s mineral inventory holds more than 19,000 records, and Ontario mined 40% of Canada’s gold in 2024.”
Turning prospecting maps into a target list
A pile of downloaded layers is not yet a plan. The step that makes prospecting maps useful is a simple scoring table, filled in for every gold occurrence and every structure that crosses your ground. It forces you to record what each record actually says, and it shows gaps you would otherwise miss.
| Field to record | Why it matters | Where it usually comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Record status | Separates producing or past-producing mines from bare occurrences | MRDS grade, MINEDEX status, OMI category |
| Deposit type and host rock | Tells you which exploration model and tools apply (see gold deposit types and prospecting methods) | The occurrence record and the geology layer |
| Structure | Most hard-rock gold follows faults and shears; a trend links scattered points | Geology map faults, lines of old workings |
| Position quality | Decides whether the point can be trusted to fall on your ground | Map scale, record notes, the calculator above |
| Reported figures | Only sourced resources or production count as numbers | The record’s references and company reports |
| Tenure | Shows whether the target is on your licence, open or held by someone else | BLM MLRS, state or national cadastre |
Once the table is done, a pattern usually appears. A handful of structures carry most of the old workings and most of the better-documented records, and those structures cross only part of the licence. That part is where fieldwork starts. Ground with good geology but no records is the second tier: it may be untested rather than barren, especially under soil, sand or vegetation that early prospectors could not see through.
Placer ground: map the channels, not just the creek
For alluvial gold, the most useful gold map is a drainage and terrace map. Old topographic sheets show ditches, flumes and tailings that mark where placer mining happened, and the edition sequence shows how far it spread. Elevation models pick out benches and abandoned channels above the modern creek, which early miners often worked and later maps may not show at all. Put the two together and you have a first map of where gravels have been tested and where they have not.
Two cautions apply. First, a placer that was worked a century ago may have been worked out, or it may have been abandoned because the equipment of the time could not handle deep or wet gravel; the map alone cannot tell you which. Second, placer ground is often the ground most disturbed by later activity, from roads to farms, so compare the old sheet with current imagery before sending anyone to a spot that may no longer exist in the form it was mapped.
Free gold maps vs paid gold map sites
Commercial gold map sites, the .com services that bundle claims, occurrences and old mines into one subscription viewer, mostly repackage the same government sources covered above: BLM claims, USGS MRDS and USMIN, and state data. They can save time. They cannot add accuracy the underlying data never had, and they sometimes lag behind the agency’s own updates. For any decision that involves money, go back to the government record.
| Question | Free government gold maps | Paid gold map sites |
|---|---|---|
| Is the data authoritative? | Yes, it is the official record | Only as good as the copy and its date |
| Is claim status current? | BLM MLRS and state cadastres are the source | Depends on refresh frequency |
| Ease of use | Varies; some viewers are slow | Usually easier, all layers in one place |
| Coverage outside the US | Strong in Australia and Canada, patchy in Africa | Often US-only |
| Cost | Free for most datasets | Subscription |
If a vendor shows a map full of gold symbols around a property, ask which database each symbol comes from, its record status and date, and whether any of it sits on the licence being sold. General information, not investment advice.
From gold map to ranked targets on your licence
Government gold maps show what was found, mostly by people walking the surface. They say little about ground under cover, or ground nobody sampled. That is where satellite screening adds a layer. Our satellite-based mineral detection analyses multispectral and hyperspectral data over your boundary and flags mineralised target zones, alteration halos, faults and fractures. Put next to the occurrence and old-mine layers from this guide, it helps rank which parts of a licence deserve fieldwork first. The results are exploration targets to test, not resources.
- Input: coordinates, KML/KMZ or a polygon, the same files you use in Google Earth, plus country and target mineral.
- Output: high-potential zones, prospectivity heatmaps, estimated location and depth ranges, and geological interpretation, as PDF and georeferenced GIS files that drop straight into the gold map you have built.
- Timing and cost: 5–20 business days; early-exploration timelines cut from months to days, and costs lowered by up to 80–85%.
- Premium+: TargetMax™ drilling-angle recommendations and 3D subsurface models of vein structures.
We have scanned 100,000+ hectares for 20+ mineral types in 25+ countries. Draw your boundary on mining.farmonaut.com (Map Your Mining Site), ask for a price through the mining query form, or look at a sample of satellite-driven 3D mineral prospectivity mapping.
The shafts and tailings on old gold mine maps may be open, unstable or contaminated. MINEDEX even keeps an abandoned-mine inventory for this reason. Record them before fieldwork, keep crews clear, and note them in any due diligence.
Add a satellite layer to your gold map
Send us the licence boundary you already use in Google Earth. We return ranked target zones and GIS files to overlay on your occurrence, geology and old-mine layers.
Guides in this series
- 3D geologic map sources: bedrock and regional geology maps, and how to estimate depth from dip.
- Geological survey agencies and their data: what the BC Geological Survey and other agencies publish free.
Frequently asked questions
Where can I get a free gold map?
From government geological surveys. In the US, USGS MRDS, USMIN and topoView are free. In Western Australia, MINEDEX and GeoVIEW.WA are free with no registration. The Northern Territory publishes its MODAT occurrences as free KML, and Ontario’s Mineral Inventory can be viewed in Google Earth through OGSEarth.
Are there free government gold maps for Google Earth?
Yes. USGS USMIN mine features download as KML by state, NT mineral occurrences are published as KML, and Ontario’s OGSEarth provides KML layers. Load them with your licence boundary and a geology overlay to build a working gold map.
How accurate are old gold mine maps?
USGS topographic sheets were made to the National Map Accuracy Standards: about 12.2 m on the ground at 1:24,000 and about 127 m at 1:250,000, for 90% of well-defined points. Hand-drawn mine symbols can be worse. Check sites on the ground.
What is the difference between a gold deposit map and a geological gold map?
A gold deposit map shows points where gold has been recorded. A geological gold map shows the rocks and structures that can host gold, such as greenstone belts, Birimian and Tarkwaian rocks or major faults. The second helps you find ground the first has missed.
Can Google Maps show gold deposits?
No. Google Maps does not carry government mineral occurrence layers. Google Earth can display them once you load the agency KML files.
Do I need a gold prospecting map before applying for a licence?
You need to know the ground is open, which means the official cadastre or claim map, and you should know why the geology is worth holding. A layered map of occurrences, geology, old workings and tenure answers both questions.
Reviewed September 2026 against the USGS MRDS and USMIN pages, USGS topoView, USGS Fact Sheet 171-99 on map accuracy, the BLM Mineral & Land Records System and claim-location pages, the Western Australian Government’s MINEDEX page, the NT Government’s STRIKE viewer and MODAT open-data listing, the Ontario Mineral Inventory description, Natural Resources Canada’s gold facts and Tetteh and others (2025) in Heliyon.
Database sizes, formats and agency names change; check each agency’s page for the current version. Symbols on any gold map are records of past observations, not evidence of an economic deposit. Nothing here is investment advice. Satellite targets are exploration targets, not mineral resources, and need sampling and drilling to confirm.
