Which country contains the most gold mines?

nirmalya_b

China is the country overtaking South Africa in 2007 in gold production. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_mining_in_China Apr 26 09, 4:49 AM

Midget40

Gold production does not necessarily equate to a large number of gold mines. South Africas leading production in the field only came from three massive mines - many countries had more mines than them. There's also no record of old mines that are not in production anymore which could skew the numbers again. The top three listed on this site (with names of the mines provided) are: USA 36 mines Canada 26 mines Australia 19 mines China is not mentioned here so cant compare with the same parameters http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Gold_mines This statement does appear in an article on Chinese gold mining though: Zhaoyuan, a Shandong provincial city of a population of 580,000 has more than 60 gold mines operating in the hills around the city http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_mining_in_China Apr 26 09, 9:24 AM

queproblema

Some other site than Wikipedia will have to be used for this one; maybe the CIA Factbook or Information Please Almanac, for two suggestions. I went to the Wiki page of US gold mines, and immediately saw the Pebble Mine listed. That isn't in production yet, and if environmentalists have their way may never be. The Pogo Mine is about 250 miles north of where I live and is very much in production, but is not on Wiki's list. The only other one I checked out of the 36 is the legendary Lost Dutchman's Mine. "Legendary" because it's only a legend: there is no proof it's ever been mined, and mining there is now prohibited by law. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Dutchman%27s_Gold_Mine http://www.teck.com/Generic.aspx?PAGE=Operations%20Pages/Gold%20Pages/Pogo&portalName=tc Apr 26 09, 12:17 PM