About 219,890 tons of gold were extracted throughout the entire history of humanitystarting from beyond 6000 years ago until today. Of these, beyond the80% it has been undermined over the last century. If you stacked every single coin, jewel, ingot or any other form of gold, you would get a cube with a side of approximately 22 meters.
Gold has always been considered a symbol of beauty, power and wealth. On average every year they are drawn from among the 2,500 and 3,000 tons of this precious metal. But it wasn’t always like this. In fact, although the first archaeological evidence of the use of gold dates back to ca 6,500 years agoas demonstrated by the findings in the necropolis of Varna Necropolis in Bulgariathe industrial extraction of this material only began in the early 1900s.
According to the best available estimates, approx 219,890 tons of gold have been mined throughout the history of humanity. Of these, approximately l‘80% has been produced since 1910 and about the 50% from the 1967. If we imagined collecting all the existing gold and melting it into a single block, we would obtain a cube with a side of just 22 metersequivalent to the height of a building of 6 – 7 floorsfor a total volume less than 11,000 m³. In other words, all the gold in the world would not be enough to fill it completely five Olympic swimming pools. It is a volume surprisingly low for a metal that has played such an important role in the history of humanity.
Of all the gold mined, approximately 45% (98,950.5 tons) is found in the form of necklaces, rings, bracelets and various objects; about the 21% (46,176.9 tons) is held by central banks and other institutions; The 19% (41,779.1 tonnes) is in the form of ingots; The 7% (15,392.3 tons) is found in coins and medals; The 6% (13,193.4 tons) is used in electronic components; and the remainder 2% (4,397.8 tons) falls into other industries, such as dental fillings or ceramics.
It is currently estimated that the global reserves of gold, i.e. the deposits from which the metal can be economically extracted with modern technologies, amount to approximately 64,000 tonswith Australia and Russia holding over a third. Gold resources, i.e. the quantity of metal present underground but not yet economically extractable, are estimated at approximately 33,000 tons. Of these, 15,000 tons are already known, while the remaining 18,000 have yet to be discovered.
