How this atlas is built
Critical Minerals Map joins three things no free tool joins: where critical minerals are physically mined and processed (and whether they are, today), how they move between countries, and what that network implies — who dominates, who sits in the middle, who depends on whom. Everything is recomputed from public data with licences that allow reuse.
Sources and licences
| Source | What it gives | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| CEPII BACI, HS-92 edition V202601 | Bilateral trade, 1995–2024, value (FOB, US$) and quantity (t), reconciled from UN Comtrade mirror flows | Etalab Open Licence 2.0 |
| USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2021–2026 | Mine and refinery production by country (2019–2025), reserves | Public domain |
| USGS Labay et al. 2017 (doi 10.5066/F7GH9GQR) | Mines, deposits and districts of critical minerals (no status) | Public domain |
| USGS MRDS | Historical register of mineral sites, frozen around 2011, mostly US | Public domain |
| European Commission, CRMA decisions C(2025)1904, C(2025)3491, C(2026)8051 | The 106 Strategic Projects | CC BY 4.0 |
| Company reports, governments, reputable press | Site statuses, each linked on its card | Facts, cited |
| Natural Earth · OpenStreetMap · Wikimedia Commons | Borders · card map tiles · card photos | Public domain · ODbL · per photo |
Deliberately not used: BGS World Mineral Statistics (non-commercial terms), UN Comtrade directly (no redistribution), the IEA data explorers, Mindat and other non-commercial datasets.
Mined, or merely there? The status ladder
A dot on a map can mean a mine shipping concentrate today or a pegmatite nobody has drilled. Each checked site carries one status, the month it was last confirmed and the sources that confirm it:
- Producing
- Construction / commissioning
- Project · feasibility / permitting
- Care & maintenance
- Deposit · resource defined
- Occurrence
- Past producer
Statuses not confirmed in the last three years are drawn dashed. USGS 2017 deposits are shown as dashed diamonds because that source records geology, not activity. EU Strategic Projects get a star whatever their stage.
HS codes per mineral and stage
| Mineral | Stage | HS-92 codes |
|---|---|---|
| Lithium | Mining | 253090 Mineral substances n.e.s. (incl. spodumene) |
| Lithium | Refining | 282520 Lithium oxide & hydroxide283691 Lithium carbonate |
| Lithium | Manufacturing | 850780 Accumulators n.e.s. (incl. Li-ion) |
| Nickel | Mining | 260400 Nickel ores & concentrates |
| Nickel | Refining | 283324 Nickel sulphate720260 Ferro-nickel750110 Nickel mattes750120 Oxide sinters & intermediates (incl. MHP)750210 Unwrought nickel750220 Nickel alloys, unwrought |
| Cobalt | Mining | 260500 Cobalt ores & concentrates |
| Cobalt | Refining | 282200 Cobalt oxides & hydroxides810510 Cobalt mattes, intermediates & unwrought |
| Graphite | Mining | 250410 Natural graphite, powder or flakes250490 Natural graphite, other |
| Graphite | Refining | 380110 Artificial graphite |
| Copper | Mining | 260300 Copper ores & concentrates |
| Copper | Refining | 740200 Unrefined copper, anodes740311 Refined cathodes740312 Wire-bars740313 Billets740319 Refined, other |
| Manganese | Mining | 260200 Manganese ores & concentrates |
| Manganese | Refining | 720211 Ferro-manganese >2% C720219 Ferro-manganese ≤2% C720230 Silico-manganese811100 Manganese metal |
| Rare earths | Refining | 280530 Rare-earth metals284610 Cerium compounds284690 Other rare-earth compounds |
| Rare earths | Manufacturing | 850511 Permanent magnets, metal |
| Gallium · germanium | Refining | 282560 Germanium oxides & zirconia (mixed)811230 Germanium811291 Gallium, indium, niobium, rhenium… (mixed) |
| Uranium | Mining | 261210 Uranium ores & concentrates |
| Uranium | Refining | 284410 Natural uranium & compounds |
| Tungsten | Mining | 261100 Tungsten ores & concentrates |
| Tungsten | Refining | 284180 Tungstates (incl. APT)810110 Tungsten powders810191 Unwrought tungsten |
Caveats: spodumene has no code of its own (2530.90 is a proxy); gallium shares 8112.91 with other minor metals; rare-earth trade cannot be split by element; uranium flows are partly confidential; USGS does not cover uranium production.
Metrics
Concentration (HHI). Sum of squared percentage shares of world export value, 0–10 000; above 2 500 is highly concentrated, 1 500–2 500 moderately. Computed per mineral, stage and year from the full trade matrix.
Chokepoints (betweenness). Brandes betweenness on the directed graph of flows above 0.25% of the year's trade: the share of shortest routes between other countries that pass through a country.
Re-export hubs. Through-flow, the smaller of a country's imports and exports, as a share of world trade.
Modules. Weighted label propagation on the undirected flow graph: groups that trade more with each other than with the rest.
Traced origin. Proportional sharing (Bialek, 1996), as in The Grid Atlas: each country's pool mixes its own supply with its imports, and its exports leave with that mix. Own supply is approximated by net exports, so the method follows goods back through re-exporting hubs; it is an estimate, not customs data.
Who processes whose ore. Imports of ore and concentrate by importer, split by declared origin.
Refresh
Trade: yearly, when CEPII releases BACI (January). Production: yearly, with the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries (February). Site statuses: reviewed continuously; each shows its own date. News: every hour per feed.