Copper production in leading countries 2010-2020

In 2020, Peru produced 2.2 million metric tons of copper. The ten leading countries in world copper production as of 2019 were Chile, Peru, China, the United States, Australia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Mexico, Russia, and Kazakhstan.

Major countries in world copper production

Chile, the world's leading copper producer by far, produced an estimated 5.7 million metric tons of copper in 2020. In second place is Peru, with an estimated copper mine production of 2.2 million metric tons in the same year. The world's third-largest copper producer from mines is China. In 2020, China produced an estimated 1.7 million metric tons of copper from mines, which is over three times less than Chile's production.

The largest copper mines in the world are located primarily in the largest copper producing nations in the world. As Chile is the world's largest producer of copper, it is not surprising that three of the world's ten largest copper mines based on capacity are located there. At the top of the list is the Escondida mine, located in the Atacama Desert in Chile's Antofagasta Region. It had a capacity of some 1.4 million metric tons of copper in 2020, which is nearly twice the capacity of the world's second-largest copper mine, located in Indonesia.