{
  "title": "Global Gold Map: Mines, Refiners, Vaults & Smuggling Routes",
  "snapshotDate": "2026-11-07",
  "referenceYear": 2025,
  "sourceProject": "The Delicate Flows documentary — Global Gold Atlas (gm04)",
  "sources": [
    {
      "name": "World Gold Council — mine production by country",
      "url": "https://www.gold.org/goldhub/data/gold-production-by-country",
      "role": "The project compares its country estimates with the WGC 2025 world mine-production benchmark (3,671.6 t) and WGC country figures. Several country estimates deliberately use national statistics that differ from WGC.",
      "license": "Publisher’s usage terms apply",
      "licenseUrl": "https://www.gold.org/terms-and-conditions"
    },
    {
      "name": "USGS — Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: gold",
      "url": "https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2026/mcs2026-gold.pdf",
      "role": "Country reserve figures and the roughly 66,000 t world reserves headline. The owner’s fact-check records that the 2026 country reserve figures were transcribed in research and not re-read from the PDF.",
      "license": "US Government public domain",
      "licenseUrl": "https://www.usgs.gov/information-policies-and-instructions/copyrights-and-credits"
    },
    {
      "name": "LBMA — Good Delivery list and London vault data",
      "url": "https://www.lbma.org.uk/good-delivery/gold-current-list",
      "role": "Refiner accreditation status (current and former lists) and London vault holdings (9,821 t at 30 September 2026). Accreditation is a listing status, not an audit of every refiner’s supply chain.",
      "license": "Publisher’s usage terms apply",
      "licenseUrl": "https://www.lbma.org.uk/prices-and-data/london-vault-data"
    },
    {
      "name": "UNEP — artisanal and small-scale gold mining",
      "url": "https://www.unep.org/en/news-and-stories/story/ending-toxic-trail-small-scale-gold-mining",
      "role": "Context for small-scale mining and mercury use. Small-scale tonnages in the atlas are rough estimates from governments, buyers, NGOs and satellite studies; many areas have no estimate.",
      "license": "Publisher’s usage terms apply",
      "licenseUrl": "https://www.unep.org/en/news-and-stories/story/ending-toxic-trail-small-scale-gold-mining"
    },
    {
      "name": "Swissaid — gold smuggling research",
      "url": "https://www.swissaid.ch/en/articles/on-the-trail-of-african-gold/",
      "role": "Documented smuggling routes and volumes. Several estimates describe earlier years or cumulative periods (for example 435 t in 2022), not annual 2025 flows.",
      "license": "Publisher’s usage terms apply",
      "licenseUrl": "https://www.swissaid.ch/en/articles/on-the-trail-of-african-gold/"
    },
    {
      "name": "Natural Earth — basemap",
      "url": "https://www.naturalearthdata.com/",
      "role": "Country boundary geometry.",
      "license": "Public domain",
      "licenseUrl": "https://www.naturalearthdata.com/about/terms-of-use/"
    }
  ],
  "knownLimits": [
    "This is a selected documentary model, not a complete live inventory. Named mines exclude 47 residual country rows; small-scale points are hotspots and national aggregates rather than single sites.",
    "Country best estimates sum to 3,551.5 t against the World Gold Council’s 3,671.6 t for 2025. Some countries use official statistics that differ materially from WGC (for example Mexico and Mali), and some countries are missing.",
    "Mine output periods differ: most named records use 2025, while others use fiscal years ending in 2025 or 2026, 2024 values or modelled calendar-2025 figures. Many projects have no 2025 output.",
    "130 named mine records are modelled from national totals and 45 use secondary sources. Reported company output can be attributable or 100% basis; owners and operators are not the same thing.",
    "Small-scale tonnages are rough estimates from governments, buyers, NGOs and satellite studies; most small-scale records are low confidence and many carry no number. They are not measured production.",
    "Reserves are company proven-and-probable figures (generally 100% basis) and USGS country totals. Reserves depend on price and cost assumptions; resources are not reserves. The USGS 2026 country figures were not re-read from the source PDF.",
    "Refiner capacity strings conflict between sources, and symbol size is only a display scale. LBMA listing describes accreditation status, not the origin of every bar a refiner handles.",
    "Doré routes are documented mine-to-refiner relationships; their tonnage is generally the mine’s 2025 output, not a measured shipment. Trade flows are selected 2025 customs totals between hubs, drawn as arcs between representative cities.",
    "Smuggling routes run from an origin to the first documented stop, not a traced path. Volumes are estimates, often for earlier years or cumulative periods, and some routes are lawful sanctions-bypass flows rather than smuggling.",
    "The owner’s research flags 702 imported records for checking, and 78 records cite background knowledge that was not re-verified. These flags are shown on the selected record."
  ],
  "changes": "XLSlides adapted the owner’s gold atlas for the web, restored full source strings, notes, mine input years and confidence labels, made the research’s modelled and verification markers visible, added route sources, coverage audits and accessible controls. Numeric rendered model values are retained. No fresh asset-by-asset validation, live tracking or publisher endorsement is claimed.",
  "sourceFiles": {
    "companionSha256": "4a96ff10692927345987eafcd3809c46ec6ff591d75a6e6de4c233dcf06f12be",
    "modelCsvSha256": {
      "mines": "05526fa0bc17adacea2ef2fbe6b6c4dc5096d8f6c55f195e2c68ba92d5fb43a3",
      "asgm": "b215758a0ea3bdd111a7c2df22fde1d26e41ffc0ca57e326a3e36d1d8370cb5a",
      "refiners": "7022878abae868aed3ecc02ebde3f42c1c5edfb319b7bf7b09afea86fad3d345",
      "midstream": "51f9e85a37d83bf498e5ffbd716dbed72616955193c67500ea3b684b9bdd30f3",
      "hubs_vaults": "8dd505743140c0482b5e0783319e65a7957a36822c9130b35a486c3189c69fe2",
      "dore_routes": "c1c574879df4780e8d2e6e8201821e9c6c0008331539bd82cdae5f740a43c377",
      "trade_2025": "048ec36482a64ac17370366daece801daaedf32954608eebacf1b6919a1ab761",
      "reserves": "3580ece4d9a78637b4f658343313d55de4546ca9c3a9ab09eb4da80409945b84",
      "country_totals": "a03cf53d00f8a4f23e9bc279393fd45654a6e7c1fdd19ad3f0a25c9ea82533d9",
      "companies": "6b93f6f9d97097ea99ea4d54a9f3502375326d58d678d0b70a7e3c163362f950"
    }
  }
}