Where Are Diamonds Mined? Countries, Geology and the Australian Story

Where are diamonds mined today?

Natural diamonds are mined commercially in roughly 20 countries, but a handful produce most of them. By weight, Russia is the largest producer, followed by Botswana, Canada and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). By value the order shifts, because Botswana's and Namibia's stones are, on average, larger and finer than the small, mostly industrial-grade diamonds that make up much of the DRC's output. Worldwide, mines recover somewhere around 110–120 million carats in a typical recent year, though the total moves with demand and mine closures.

A carat is a unit of weight (0.2 grams), not size, and most of those carats are small. Only part of the world's output is gem quality; the rest becomes abrasive grit and tool tips for cutting, drilling and polishing. If you are new to the topic, our complete guide to natural diamonds covers the basics, and any unfamiliar word on this page is explained in the plain-English jewellery glossary.

Where are diamonds found, in broad terms? Four main regions:

• Southern and central Africa: Botswana, the DRC, Angola, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Sierra Leone and Tanzania.
• Russia: mostly the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) in Siberia, plus the Arkhangelsk region in the north-west.
• Canada: the Northwest Territories, below the Arctic Circle, around Lac de Gras.
• Smaller or historic producers: Australia, India, Brazil, Guyana and others, where mining is now small-scale or has stopped.

Why are diamonds only found in certain places?

Natural diamond is pure carbon crystallised under enormous heat and pressure. Most formed about 140–200 km below the surface, in the upper mantle, at roughly 900–1,300 °C and pressures of about 45,000–60,000 times the air pressure at sea level. Our page on how natural diamonds form deep in the mantle goes through the process in detail. Most natural diamonds are between about 1 and 3.5 billion years old, far older than the rocks they are mined from.

Diamonds can only survive at that depth where the mantle is cool and thick enough, which is under cratons: the oldest, most stable cores of the continents, generally more than 2.5 billion years old. That is why diamond mines cluster in places like the Kalahari craton (Botswana, South Africa), the Siberian craton, the Slave craton in northern Canada and the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Geologists searching for new mines start by mapping these ancient blocks.

The diamonds reached the surface inside rare volcanic rocks called kimberlite and lamproite. These magmas rise from great depth very quickly, picking up diamonds on the way, and blast out carrot-shaped pipes. Most pipes mined today erupted tens to hundreds of millions of years ago. Only a small share of known kimberlites carry diamonds at all, and fewer still carry enough to mine.

Geologists call the pipe itself a primary deposit. Over millions of years, weathering wears the top of a pipe away and rivers carry the loose diamonds downstream into gravels, forming secondary or alluvial deposits. Diamond is 10 on the Mohs hardness scale and survives this journey where weaker minerals break down, and flawed crystals tend to break on the way, so river and beach deposits often hold a higher share of gem-quality stones. It is one reason diamond is unusual among gems; see what makes diamond unlike any other gem.

Which countries mine the most diamonds?

Production figures change every year, so treat the table below as a rough guide to the main diamond producing countries rather than a ranking to quote.

So what is the largest diamond producing country? By carats, Russia, which mines roughly a third of the world's output. By value, Botswana and Russia usually trade the top spot. Since 2024, the G7 countries have restricted imports of Russian diamonds, which has pushed the trade to pay more attention to where stones come from.

Canada is the newest major producer, with mines in remote tundra that are reached by winter ice roads. Because the mines are modern and closely regulated, many stones are tracked from mine to polished diamond; our page on Canadian diamonds from the Northwest Territories explains how that works.

Where were diamonds first mined?

For well over 2,000 years, India was the world's only known source. Diamonds were washed from river gravels along the Krishna and other rivers in the south, and traded through the city of Golconda. Some of the world's most famous diamonds, including the Koh-i-Noor and the stone that became the Hope, are thought to be Indian. Our guide to the world's most famous diamonds traces where each one came from.

As the Indian gravels ran low, Brazil took over after diamonds were found in Minas Gerais in the 1720s. Then, in 1867, a child found a diamond near Hopetown in South Africa. Within a few years prospectors had found diamonds in the rock itself at Kimberley, and the hand-dug pit later called the Big Hole became the first great pipe mine. The rock was named kimberlite after the town. In 1905 the Premier (now Cullinan) mine produced the Cullinan, at about 3,106 carats rough the largest gem diamond ever found.

The 20th century added Siberia (the Mir pipe, 1955), Botswana (Orapa in 1967, then Jwaneng), Australia (Argyle, 1979) and Canada (Lac de Gras, 1991). If you own or are looking at older jewellery, the cut and age can hint at its source: many stones in antique and old-stock diamonds from the late 1800s were South African.

Where are diamonds mined in Australia?

Today, almost none. Australia's big diamond story is the Argyle mine in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. The pipe was discovered in 1979, alluvial mining started in 1983, and the main open pit followed. Argyle was unusual in two ways: the diamonds came from lamproite rather than kimberlite, and the ore was extraordinarily rich in carats. At its 1990s peak Argyle produced more than 30 million carats a year, about a third of world output by volume, and made Australia one of the largest diamond producers on earth.

Most Argyle diamonds were small and brown, sold under names like champagne and cognac. Its fame comes from the rest: Argyle supplied more than 90% of the world's pink diamonds, plus rare reds, blues and violets. After moving underground in 2013, the mine closed in November 2020, having produced more than 865 million carats. Our page on the full story of the Argyle mine covers the pink tenders and what has happened since.

Australia has had other mines too. Ellendale, also in the Kimberley, mined lamproite from 2002 until 2015 and was known for fancy yellow diamonds. Merlin in the Northern Territory operated briefly around 1999–2003. And alluvial diamonds were found in the New South Wales goldfields from the mid-1800s, with small workings around Copeton, Bingara and Inverell. Both the Kimberley region of Western Australia and the city of Kimberley in South Africa are named after the same British colonial secretary, Lord Kimberley, which is a coincidence rather than a link.

How are diamonds mined?

How diamonds are mined depends on the deposit. Pipe mines move huge volumes of rock; alluvial and marine mining sift gravels that nature has already sorted.

At the processing plant, ore is crushed and passed through dense-media separation (diamonds are heavy for their size), then X-ray machines detect diamonds by their fluorescence and blow them out with air jets. Many plants also use grease tables, since diamond sticks to grease while wet rock does not.

Grades are measured in carats per hundred tonnes (cpht). Many productive kimberlite mines sit somewhere around 10 to 150 cpht, which means moving tonnes of rock for every carat, and much of that carat weight is small or industrial. Large, clean rough is far rarer than small rough, which is why price climbs so steeply with size; see why large rough is so much rarer than small.

Does it matter where a diamond was mined?

For how a diamond looks, mostly no. A G colour, VS1 diamond from Botswana and one from Canada are graded on the same scales and look the same. Once a diamond is cut and polished, a gemmologist cannot reliably tell its country of origin by eye or with standard equipment.

Some regions do lean towards certain kinds of stone. Argyle produced pinks and browns; Lesotho's Letšeng and South Africa's Cullinan are known for large type IIa diamonds (very low in nitrogen, often exceptionally white); Cullinan also produced rare blue type IIb stones. Our page on diamond types Ia, Ib, IIa and IIb explains what those labels mean. Around 98% of natural diamonds are type Ia, wherever they are mined.

Where origin matters more is traceability. Different documents tell you different things:

Read more about what the Kimberley Process does and does not cover, and about how Canadian mine-of-origin tracking works. For the reports themselves, our page on how the main grading labs compare sets out which labs offer origin services. A report will also flag treatments that origin does not, such as HPHT-treated natural diamonds, where heat and pressure have been used to change a mined diamond's colour.

Lab-grown diamonds are not mined at all. They are real diamond, grown in a laboratory by the HPHT (high pressure, high temperature) or CVD (chemical vapour deposition) method, with much of the world's supply coming from China and India. They are graded much like natural diamonds, and the report always states that the stone is laboratory-grown. To see how GemTrove handles sourcing questions for natural stones, read GemTrove's approach to responsible sourcing.

Can you still buy an Argyle or Australian diamond?

Yes, but only from existing supply. No new Argyle diamonds have been mined since 2020, so Argyle stones now come from jewellers' and dealers' stock, estate pieces and private resale. Certified Argyle pinks are scarce and expensive; small Argyle champagne and white diamonds turn up more often and at more ordinary prices.

Scarcity does not make any diamond an investment. Retail prices include cutting, setting and the jeweller's costs, and resale prices are usually well below what you paid. Our page on how natural diamond prices have moved over time explains the pattern honestly. Choose a diamond because you love wearing it.

If you already have a diamond in the family, perhaps from an older Australian ring, it can often be reset. A worn claw setting can be rebuilt or the stone moved to a new design; see our guide to resetting a diamond you already own.

How do you buy a natural diamond with a known origin? Step by step

1. Decide how much origin matters to you. For many people the grades and the look come first; for others, knowing the country or mine is part of the meaning.
2. Ask what documentation exists. A grading report alone rarely states origin. Ask whether there is a mine-of-origin report, a provenance program or, for pinks, an Argyle certificate.
3. Check the grading report. Confirm the diamond is natural, and look for any treatment, such as HPHT colour change.
4. Match the inscription. If the girdle (the thin outer edge) is laser-inscribed, check the number under a loupe and look it up against the report.
5. Look for the warranty statement. Natural diamond invoices in the trade usually carry a statement that the stones were bought through Kimberley Process channels.
6. Judge the diamond itself. Origin does not change sparkle. Compare cut, colour, clarity and millimetre size as you would for any diamond; our guide to choosing a natural diamond walks through each grade.