# How much gold is there per capita in the world? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 24, 2005, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-gold-is-there-per-capita-in-the-world/305254 "2005-05-24T13:34:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![FlippyFly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e95f7d/32.png) [@FlippyFly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlippyFly)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-gold-is-there-per-capita-in-the-world/305254/1 "2005-05-24T13:34:26Z")
If you took all the gold currently available and divided it up evenly, how much would each person get? Enough for a ring? Obviously, some have a lot more than their share (like the royal families) and some have a lot less (like myself – as in none). Does anyone have a realistic idea about the volume of gold that is currently in human possession? ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-gold-is-there-per-capita-in-the-world/305254/2 "2005-05-24T13:53:49Z")
My memory may be off here, but I recall hearing a Jeopary question to the effect that the total amount of gold mined in the history of the world amounts to a cube approximately 60 feet on each side. If my math is right, this amounts to 37 million cubic inches of gold, and with a world population of about 6.4 billion, that works out to .058 cubic inches per person. That’s a nugget roughly 2/5ths of an inch on each side. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-gold-is-there-per-capita-in-the-world/305254/3 "2005-05-24T13:55:12Z")
I concur with Ravenman. My memory has it at a slightly larger cube (80 ft. seems to stick in my mind) but the essentials are there. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-gold-is-there-per-capita-in-the-world/305254/4 "2005-05-24T13:55:44Z")
[http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials\_02/morgan060302.html](http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_02/morgan060302.html) "Plain and Simple: There is more Gold Bullion than Silver Bullion “There is less silver available for investment than gold. I am often chastised about this bold statement. So, let us use the most recent CPM study and see for ourselves. According to CPM Group’s Silver Survey 2002, there are approximately 400 million ounces of silver bullion and 2 billion ounces of gold bullion.” That is just gold bullion. This doesn’t include all the gold in jewelry, etc. that is in private hands. More than enough for a gold ring for everyone on the planet. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-gold-is-there-per-capita-in-the-world/305254/5 "2005-05-24T13:56:16Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > My memory may be off here, but I recall hearing a Jeopary question to the effect that the total amount of gold mined in the history of the world amounts to a cube approximately 60 feet on each side. If my math is right, this amounts to 37 million cubic inches of gold, and with a world population of about 6.4 billion, that works out to .058 cubic inches per person. That’s a nugget roughly 2/5ths of an inch on each side. Which would be very close to a cubic centimeter, yes?? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-gold-is-there-per-capita-in-the-world/305254/6 "2005-05-24T13:58:57Z")
> **[How much gold is there in the world?](https://money.howstuffworks.com/question213.htm)** > > How much would all the money in the world weigh and how much would it be worth? Find out what "all the money in the world" really means. “Figuring out the total amount of gold that has been produced by man is a little harder. To get at some kind of estimate, let’s figure that the world has been producing gold at 50 million ounces a year for 200 years. That number is probably a little high, but when you figure that the Aztecs and the Egyptians produced a fair amount of gold for a long time, it’s probably not too far off. Fifty million ounces \* 200 years = 10 billion ounces. Ten billion ounces of gold would fit into a cube roughly 25 meters (about 82 feet) on a side. Consider that the Washington Monument measures 55 feet by 55 feet at its base and is 555 feet tall (17 x 17 x 170 m). That means that if you could somehow gather every scrap of gold that man has ever mined into one place, you could only build about one-third of the Washington Monument.” ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-gold-is-there-per-capita-in-the-world/305254/7 "2005-05-24T14:15:34Z")
> [@](#): > > [http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/gold/gold\_mcs05.pdf](http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/gold/gold_mcs05.pdf) > > Of the estimated 150,000 tons of all gold ever mined, about 15% is thought to have been lost, used in dissipative industrial uses, or otherwise was unrecoverable or unaccounted for. Of the remaining 128,000 tons, central banks hold an estimated 32,000 tons as official stocks, and about 96,000 tons is privately held as bullion, coin, and jewelry. That’s about 21 grams of gold for each person… not a particularly thick gold ring… ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-gold-is-there-per-capita-in-the-world/305254/8 "2005-05-24T15:13:48Z")
> [@naita](#): > > That’s about 21 grams of gold for each person… not a particularly thick gold ring… 21 Grams? Isn’t that the mass of the human soul (or so the movie _21 Grams_ would have us believe? Interesting. ---
**Author:** ![FlippyFly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e95f7d/32.png) [@FlippyFly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlippyFly)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2005, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-gold-is-there-per-capita-in-the-world/305254/9 "2005-05-26T17:14:26Z")
Can I get a diamond with that? ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2005, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-gold-is-there-per-capita-in-the-world/305254/10 "2005-05-26T19:19:51Z")
In **naita** ’s quote, what does “unrecoverable” mean? Is that like the gold foil used on many spacecraft for shielding, and presumably now beyond human reach? Or what? ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2005, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-gold-is-there-per-capita-in-the-world/305254/11 "2005-05-26T19:41:51Z")
This [gold](http://periodic.lanl.gov/elements/79.html) listing on the periodic table says there’s 60 ft cubed of refined gold in the world. That’s 216,000 ft[sup]3[/sup]. Using 5.5 billion people in the world, that gives each of us 3.927 x 10[sup]-5[/sup] ft[sup]3[/sup] of gold, or a cube 0.034 ft on a side. That’s 0.41 inches, or 1.044 cm. So yeah, about 1 cc per person. 🙂