Mining in Australia has long been a significant primary sector industry and contributor to the Australian economy by providing export income, royalty payments and employment. Historically, mining booms have also encouraged population growth via immigration to Australia, particularly the gold rushes of the 1850s. Many different ores, gems and minerals have been mined in the past and a wide variety are still mined throughout the country.
Mining in Western Australia, together with the petroleum industry in the state, accounted for 94% of the State's and 46% of Australia's income from total merchandise exports in 2019–20. The state of Western Australia hosted 123 predominantly higher value and export-oriented mining projects and hundreds of smaller quarries and mines. The principal projects produced more than 99 per cent of the industry's total sales value.
In the United States, copper mining has been a major industry since the rise of the northern Michigan copper district in the 1840s. In 2017, the US produced 1.27 million metric tonnes of copper, worth $8 billion, making it the world's fourth largest copper producer, after Chile, China, and Peru. Copper was produced from 23 mines in the US. Top copper producing states in 2014 were Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, and Montana. Minor production also came from Idaho, and Missouri. As of 2014, the US had 45 million tonnes of known remaining reserves of copper, the fifth largest known copper reserves in the world, after Chile, Australia, Peru, and Mexico.
In the United States, gold mining has taken place continually since the discovery of gold at the Reed farm in North Carolina in 1799. The first documented occurrence of gold was in Virginia in 1782. Some minor gold production took place in North Carolina as early as 1793, but created no excitement. The discovery on the Reed farm in 1799 which was identified as gold in 1802 and subsequently mined marked the first commercial production.
Silver mining in the United States began on a major scale with the discovery of the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1858. The industry suffered greatly from the demonetization of silver in 1873 by the Coinage Act of 1873, known pejoratively as the "Crime of 73", but silver mining continues today.
Silver mining in Nevada, a state of the United States, began in 1858 with the discovery of the Comstock Lode, the first major silver-mining district in the United States. Nevada calls itself the "Silver State." Nevada is the nation's second-largest producer of silver, after Alaska. In 2014 Nevada produced 10.93 million troy ounces of silver, of which 6.74 million ounces were as a byproduct of the mining of gold. The largest byproducers were the Hycroft Mine, the Phoenix Mine, the Midas Mine and Round Mountain.
Mining in South Africa was once the main driving force behind the history and development of Africa's most advanced and richest economy. Large-scale and profitable mining started with the discovery of a diamond on the banks of the Orange River in 1867 by Erasmus Jacobs and the subsequent discovery of the Kimberley pipes a few years later. Gold rushes to Pilgrim's Rest and Barberton were precursors to the biggest discovery of all, the Main Reef/Main Reef Leader on Gerhardus Oosthuizen's farm Langlaagte, Portion C, in 1886, the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the subsequent rapid development of the gold field there, the biggest of them all.
Gold mining in the People's Republic of China has made that country the world's largest gold producer. In 2022, China mined 403 tons of gold. Data indicates the marginal costs are often above the world price for gold. For the year 2007, gold output rose 12% from 2006 to 276 tonnes to become the world's largest for the first time—overtaking South Africa, which produced 272 tonnes. South Africa had until then been the largest for 101 years straight since 1905. The major reasons for this change in position had been due to South African production falling by 50% in the past decade as production costs there have risen, more stringent safety regulations have been implemented, and existing mines have become depleted.
Gold mining in Alaska, a state of the United States, has been a major industry and impetus for exploration and settlement since a few years after the United States acquired the territory in 1867 from the Russian Empire. Russian explorers discovered placer gold in the Kenai River in 1848, but no gold was produced. Gold mining started in 1870 from placers southeast of Juneau, Alaska.
Gold mining in Nevada, a state of the United States, is a major industry, and one of the largest sources of gold in the world. In 2018 Nevada produced 5,581,160 troy ounces, representing 78% of US gold and 5.0% of the world's production. Total gold production recorded from Nevada from 1835 to 2017 totals 205,931,000 troy ounces (6,405.2 t), worth US$322.6 billion at 2020 values. Much of Nevada's gold production comes from large open pit mining using heap leaching recovery.
The Mining industry of Ghana accounts for 5% of the country's GDP and minerals make up 37% of total exports. Gold contributes over 90% of the total mineral exports. Thus, the main focus of Ghana's mining and minerals development industry remains focused on gold. Ghana is Africa's largest gold producer, producing 80.5 t in 2008. Ghana is also a major producer of bauxite, manganese and diamonds. Ghana has 20 large-scale mining companies producing gold, diamonds, bauxite and manganese; over 300 registered small scale mining groups; and 90 mine support service companies. Other mineral commodities produced in the country are natural gas, petroleum, salt, and silver.
Despite being a mineral rich country, Cameroon has only recently begun to investigate mining on an industrial scale. Strong metal and industrial mineral prices since 2003 have encouraged companies to develop mines here. The terrain mainly consists of granite-rich ground with areas of ultramafic rocks that are sources of cobalt and nickel. There are also deposits of bauxite, gold, iron ore, nepheline syenite, and rutile. Alluvial gold is mainly mined by artisanal miners.
The mineral industry of Russia is one of the world's leading mineral industries and accounts for a large percentage of the Commonwealth of Independent States' production of a range of mineral products, including metals, industrial minerals, and mineral fuels. In 2005, Russia ranked among the leading world producers or was a significant producer of a vast range of mineral commodities, including aluminum, arsenic, cement, copper, magnesium compounds and metals, nitrogen, palladium, silicon, nickel and vanadium.
Mining in the United States has been active since the beginning of colonial times, but became a major industry in the 19th century with a number of new mineral discoveries causing a series of mining rushes. In 2015, the value of coal, metals, and industrial minerals mined in the United States was US$109.6 billion. 158,000 workers were directly employed by the mining industry.
There are different methods by which gold mining companies are ranked. One is by their annual production. Another is by their cash cost per ounce, that is, how much money it costs them to mine the gold. Since gold prices are the same everywhere, companies with lower costs per ounce make more profit. The most common method lists by market capitalization which considers the total value of capital holdings by that company. Also considered when comparing companies is their market capitalization per ounce of gold equivalent which takes the market value and total reserves and resources for each company as well as the price of gold into consideration. The figures for each company can be used to determine the value the stock market gives to each company's reserves on an ounce to ounce basis.
The following list creates a summary of the two major producers of different minerals.
Zinc mining is the process by which mineral forms of the metal zinc are extracted from the earth through mining. A zinc mine is a mine that produces zinc minerals in ore as its primary product. Common co-products in zinc ores include minerals of lead and silver. Other mines may produce zinc minerals as a by-product of the production of ores containing more valuable minerals or metals, such as gold, silver or copper. Mined ore is processed, usually on site, to produce one or more metal-rich concentrates, then transported to a zinc smelter for production of zinc metal.
Zinc mining in the United States produced 780,000 tonnes of zinc in 2019, making it the world's fourth-largest zinc producer, after China, Australia, and Peru. Most US zinc came from the Red Dog mine in Alaska. The industry employed about 2,500 in mining and milling, and 250 in smelting.
China 
Australia 
Russia 
Canada 
United States 
Mexico 
Kazakhstan 
South Africa 
Peru 
Uzbekistan 
Ghana 
Indonesia 
Burkina Faso 
Brazil 
Colombia 
Tanzania 
Papua New Guinea 
Mali 
Sudan 
Argentina