Explore the data
The headline picture, then a closer look at the minerals. Every figure is a best-available estimate from the public record; sources sit under each chart.
01The headline picture
ASM’s scale is best understood by comparison: it employs roughly an order of magnitude more than the global large-scale mining workforce, and in many mineral-rich countries it is the leading non-farm rural employer. Yet most of it is invisible to official statistics.
02The rise of ASM
The workforce has roughly tripled in two decades, pushed up by rising mineral prices and a shortage of other rural livelihoods. Each bar is the most-cited estimate for its year.
Source: IGF, Global Trends in ASM (1993–2017); Delve/World Bank 2020 (45M). Estimates, not a continuous series.
03Share of world mineral supply
Source: World Bank / Pact, State of the ASM Sector; IGF, Global Trends in ASM; Cobalt Institute 2024 (cobalt). Cobalt’s artisanal share collapsed in 2024 from the historical 10–20%.
04Browse by mineral
Use the selector below to move between minerals. Figures are indicative shares; the leading-producer bars are relative, not exact tonnages, reflecting the patchy state of production data.
Data shown here is compiled from secondary sources and reflects what is publicly available; not every country or mineral is represented, and the picture improves as the record fills. Add data →
ASM supplies roughly a fifth of the world’s newly-mined gold, up from about 4% in the 1990s.
Gold is the largest ASM sub-sector by value and the main reason mercury is used in mining, a single, tractable target for clean-up.