Copper
Copper content of annual mine production. The source table reports refinery production separately; the atlas uses only the mine-production column.
Mine production, contained copper
thousand metric tonnes / 2025Approximate country centres, not mine or factory sites. Circle areas scale with output; very small markers have a minimum visible size. Natural Earth land outline, public domain. Country groupings without coordinates appear only in the table.
| Country / reporting group | thousand metric tonnes |
|---|---|
| Chile | 5,300 |
| Congo (Kinshasa) | 3,200 |
| Peru | 2,700 |
| China | 1,800 |
| Russia | 1,300 |
| United States | 1,000 |
| Zambia | 940 |
| Australia | 730 |
| Indonesia | 710 |
| Kazakhstan | 710 |
| Mexico | 690 |
| Canada | 500 |
| Poland | 410 |
| India | 23 |
| Germany | 0 |
| Japan | 0 |
| Korea, Republic of | 0 |
| Other countries | 3,000 |
| World total (rounded) | 23,000 |
Read the pattern.
Chile has the largest reported mine output, followed by Congo (Kinshasa) and Peru. The table’s mined copper is a different measure from refined copper: refineries can process imported feed as well as domestic material. A country can therefore be prominent in refining without corresponding mine production. These numbers show one stage in the supply chain during one observation year.
From country output to a real object
Copper-bearing ore must be concentrated or leached, then converted and refined through routes suited to the ore. Metal may cross borders before being drawn into wire or formed into sheet. Recycled copper contributes additional feed. A country’s mine output is evidence about global supply, not the provenance of a phone or cable.
Follow the evidence
Original explanations informed by the sources below. Technical and industry sources support material behaviour; industry environmental marketing is not treated as a universal comparison. Browse the source register.
- Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Copper, world production table ↗U.S. Geological Survey, National Minerals Information Center · 2026-02; report version 1.3, 2026-05-27 · Checked 2026-11-13
- Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 Data Release ↗U.S. Geological Survey, National Minerals Information Center · 2026-09-18 (landing page) · Checked 2026-11-13
- Natural Earth 1:110m land polygons ↗Natural Earth; Tom Patterson, Nathaniel Vaughn Kelso and contributors · Versioned dataset; accessed 2026-11-13 · Checked 2026-11-13