MATERIALSDECODED
Tungsten · Country-wise

Tungsten by Country: One Producer, a Decisive Majority

China mines roughly 79 percent of world tungsten, and no other single country reaches even 4 percent, among the most lopsided maps in this series.

Simple World MapAuthor: Al MacDonald Editor: Fritz Lekschas License: CC BY-SA 3.0 ID: ISO 3166-1 or "_[a-zA-Z]" if an ISO code is not available
Lower shareHigher share
China's share here is nearly identical to magnesium's, covered on magnesium's own country page, one of the most concentrated single-country maps in this series.
China
67 kt
Vietnam
3 kt
Kazakhstan
2.4 kt
North Korea
2 kt
Russia
2 kt
Bolivia
1.7 kt
Rwanda
1.3 kt
Australia
1 kt
Tungsten mine production by country, 2024. Reserves follow a similar pattern: China roughly 2,500 kt against Australia's 570 kt and Russia's 400 kt.

A reserve picture that does not offer an easy alternative

Unlike lithium’s Bolivia-Australia mismatch, covered on lithium’s country page, tungsten’s reserve ranking broadly confirms China’s production dominance rather than pointing to an under-exploited alternative, China holds the largest reserve estimate by a wide margin too.

Sources: production and reserve figures reference this project’s own verified production data (USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025).