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Zambia

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The sources listed are the ones this profile uses, with the years their figures describe. The access date is today.

Zambia mined 4.1% (USGS) of the world's copper in 2025 (estimated) and refined 0.9% (USGS).

4.1%

of the world's copper mining in 2025 (estimated), according to USGS · about 1 in 20

#7 in copper miningANNUAL 2025

  • Materials with a production share

    2

    with a mining or refining share on record

  • Sites on record

    9

    Mines and plants in the open sources. Coverage is partial.

  • Exports of the ten materials

    $11bn

    2024; most of it copper; 38 partner countries

  • Grid emissions intensity

    126gCO2e/kWh

    2024

OverviewSupply chainMoneySustainabilityRisks & policySourcesHistory & talk

Overview

What it produces

Share of world output, per material and stage. Each bar is one source's figure; where two sources report the same stage, both are shown and never blended. A full-width bar would be 100%.

  • Copper· Mine

    • 4.1%about 1 in 20#7 in copper miningUSGS, 2025 (estimated) · 940 kt

      Rank 7 of the 14 countries with a figure in this USGS table.

  • Cobalt· Mine

    • 1.3%#5 in cobalt miningIEA, 2025 · 4 kt Co

      Rank 5 of the 6 countries with a figure in this IEA table.

  • Copper· Refine

    • 0.9%#17 in copper refiningUSGS, 2025 (estimated) · 270 kt

      Rank 17 of the 17 countries with a figure in this USGS table.

Key facts

Country code
ZMB
GDP
$29bn (2025)
Mineral rents, share of GDP
28% (2021)
Ores and metals, share of goods exports
73% (2024)
Mining area, all commodities
480 km² (2019; rank 26 of 144)

Money →Sustainability →Risks & policy →

Map

Basemap: Natural Earth (public domain)
  • Zambia
  • Mine or brine operation
  • Processing site

Sites are those in the open sources. A site missing here is missing from the sources, not from the world.

Sites on record · 9

9 of 9 shown

One entry per site. Where two sources describe the same site, the atlas lists the record of the source it ranks higher.

Country in context

Copper: Mine production, 2025 (estimated). All rows come from the same table.

Country in context: Copper, Mine production, 2025
Countrythousand metric tonsShare of worldSource
ZambiaThis country9404.1 %
ChileLargest producer in the table5 30023.0 %
World totalWorld total as the source gives it23 000–

Supply chain

Every figure the sources give for this country, its trade partners per material, and where its sites are.

Production, refining and reserves

The latest year of each series. Share is of the series total: the larger of the source world total and the sum of its rows. Rank counts only the countries that have a number in that series.

Production, refining and reserves: Zambia
SeriesAmountShare of worldSource
Cobalt: Mining (IEA)2025 · IEA GCMO 2026 · rank 5 of 64 kt Co1.3 %
Copper: Mine production2025 (estimated) · USGS MCS 2026 · rank 7 of 14940 kt4.1 %
Copper: Refinery production2025 (estimated) · USGS MCS 2026 · rank 17 of 17270 kt0.9 %
Copper: Reserves2025 · USGS MCS 2026 · rank 10 of 1421 000 kt2.1 %

Trade partners

3 recorded flows, 2024

Basemap: Natural Earth (public domain)
  • Recorded trade flow; a thicker line is a larger value
  • Zambia

Lines join the middle of each country. They are not shipping routes.

Recorded trade flows of Zambia: Copper
PartnerMaterialYearValue, US$Source
Export toSwitzerlandCopperProcess2024$3.8bn
Export toChinaCopperProcess2024$1.9bn
Export toIndiaCopperProcess2024$1.6bn

Reconciled customs data (CEPII BACI), by value. The data holds only the largest flows of each material, so this is not the country’s full trade.

9 sites, deposits and projects on record are listed with the map in the Overview →

Money

What the trade data and the World Bank record in money terms. Every value is a reported figure with its own year.

All recorded trade flows of 2024 under the customs codes that isolate one of the ten materials, by value (CEPII BACI, reconciled estimates, current US dollars). Codes that mix several materials are left out, so trade in those materials is understated; gallium and germanium have no usable code at all. Each material lists its five largest partners. Why trade data blurs some materials

Exports of the ten materials

$11bnin 2024, with 38 partner countries

Imports of the ten materials

$217Min 2024, with 21 partner countries

The economy around mining

World Bank indicators. Each has its own latest year, shown next to the value; mineral rents are often several years old.

  • GDP (current US$)

    $29bn

    Year 2025

  • Mineral rents (% of GDP)

    28%

    Year 2021

  • Ores and metals exports (% of merchandise exports)

    73%

    Year 2024

Government revenue from extractives

EITI, reported

What government agencies reported receiving from extractive companies, per fiscal year, as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) publishes it in US dollars. A total covers every sector the country's report covers and is not split by mineral.

$2.2bnlatest reported fiscal year, 2022

Sectors in the report: mining, oil, gas · Period: 2022-01-01 – 2022-12-31

All 15 reported years
Fiscal yearGovernment revenue (US$)Sectors in the reportCountry fileSource
20222022-01-01 – 2022-12-312 171 869 718mining, oil, gassummary file
20212021-01-01 – 2021-12-011 629 096 431mining, oil, gassummary file
20202020-01-01 – 2020-12-311 208 736 657mining, oil, gassummary file
20192019-01-01 – 2019-12-311 088 631 006mining, oil, gas—
20182018-01-01 – 2018-12-311 376 960 011mining, oil, gassummary file
20172017-01-01 – 2017-12-311 115 777 573mining, oil, gassummary file
20162016-01-01 – 2016-12-31845 480 711mining, oil, gassummary file
20152015-01-01 – 2015-12-31867 194 730miningsummary file
20142014-01-01 – 2014-12-311 383 635 758miningsummary file
20132013-01-01 – 2013-12-311 238 702 711mining, oil, gassummary file
20122012-01-01 – 2012-12-311 329 170 218mining, oil, gassummary file
20112011-01-01 – 2011-12-311 392 347 531mining, oil, gassummary file
20102010-01-01 – 2010-12-31631 402 734miningsummary file
20092009-01-01 – 2009-12-31363 241 851miningsummary file
20082008-01-01 – 2008-12-31460 726 035miningsummary file

EITI reports lag by two to four years. The figure is the report's own total and is not adjusted for inflation. Republished under EITI's Content Use Policy with credit to the EITI International Secretariat, eiti.org. These figures are kept in a file of their own and are not part of the atlas's ODbL data. EITI open data

Investment pipeline

announced figures

Planned and under-construction projects in Zambia with a publicly announced capital cost, public financial backing, or both. Each line is one statement by the named publisher on the given date; the atlas adds nothing to it.

No data yet. The atlas has read no announcement of this kind for a project in Zambia. The list is short and hand-read; a missing project is missing from the list, not from the world.

A short, hand-read list, not a census: 19 projects in all. Announced amounts are not spending, a letter of interest or a conditional commitment is not a loan, and amounts stay in the currency of the announcement.

Public support instruments

Stockpiles, price floors, offtake and purchasing programmes and public funds of Zambia's government, as dated policy events of the type "public support". Each is one statement by its publisher.

No data yet. The atlas has read no public support instrument of Zambia's government. The list is short and hand-read.

Mining companies headquartered here · 2

Companies that Wikidata places in the mining industry with headquarters in Zambia, for every commodity, not only the ten materials. Wikidata is edited by volunteers: entries may be missing or out of date, and each name links to its item. A listing names an exchange and a ticker; it is not a price.

CompanyHeadquartersStock listingLEISource
Konkola Copper MinesLusaka—254900SRGQ7I4WMQOC08
ZCCM Investments Holdings PLCLusaka—5493005OY00M9G3XSY51

These figures are informational, not financial advice.

Sustainability

Four indicators, the same on every profile. Each is a figure with its unit, year and source, or a plain statement that there is none.

  • Carbon

    Emissions intensity of the country's electricity grid.

    126gCO2e/kWh

    2024Reported

    Higher than 16% of the other 208 countries with a grid figure.

    • It describes the national grid, not mining or refining. Sites may run on their own power.

  • Water

    Share of the country's mine sites on record that lie in high or extremely high baseline water stress.

    0%of mine sites on record

    2023Estimated

    No world percentile: the number of sites on record differs too much between countries to compare them.

    • 0 of 8 sites with a class (8 mine and brine sites on record).
    • Counted by site, not by tonnage: it is not a share of production.
    • "Arid and Low Water Use" is a class of its own in the source and is not counted as high.

  • Land

    Land visibly used by mining in the country, every commodity together.

    480km²

    2019Estimated

    Higher than 83% of the other 143 countries with a mapped mining area.

    • Rank 26 of 144 countries by area.
    • Mapped from satellite images for all mining in a country. It cannot be attributed to one material or one site.

  • Circularity

    Recycling's share of demand.

    Not available per country: recycling rates in the atlas are published per material, for the EU as a whole.

There is no overall score: the four figures measure different things and are not added up. How to read these figures

Risks & policy

Export controls in force

Compiled by USGS, effective January 2026. Not a live feed.

USGS Table 4 lists no export control by this country for the materials in the atlas.

Chokepoints at sea

The atlas has no record of which minerals pass through which sea passage, so no chokepoint figure is attached to this profile. Current ship counts for the main passages are on the Live page. Open the Live page

Gaps

What the atlas is missing for Zambia

Computed from the data. Each line names a record that exists and one that does not. It marks missing data, not missing industry.

None of the checks finds a missing record. That does not mean the record is complete.

  • Trade is partial by design: the atlas holds only each material's largest flows. 7 of them name this country.

Add dataAll gaps, across materials

Sources

Every source this profile uses, with its licence, the years its figures describe and how sure the figures are. Each chip on the profile opens the single record.

The mining-area figure comes from a share-alike source (CC-BY-SA-4.0). It is kept in its own file under that licence, apart from the rest of the atlas's data.

History & talk

Revision history and discussion are coming soon.

Every change to a figure will be listed here with its source, its credit and its review, and each profile will have a place to discuss it. Until then the data changes only when a source is updated, and every figure links to that source.

What can be contributed today

What we don't know yet

No open source we may use gives these figures. Nothing is estimated to fill them. If you know a public source, add it.

Type the name of a material, a country, a site or a company.