The top lithium mining country is currently Australia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_lithium_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List

The top lithium mining country is currently Australia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_lithium_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_lithium_p... Here's a USGS report on global lithium from 1996: https://d9-wret.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets/palladium/production/mineral-pubs/lithium/lithimcs96.pdf https://d9-wret.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets/palladium/... And the same report from 2025: https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2025/mcs2025-lithium.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2025/mcs2025-lithium.pd... Over those 29 years world production shot up from 6,300 tons in 1995 to 240,000 tons in 2024. At the same time reserves grew from 2.2 million tons to 30 million tons. How can reserves go up even as we're mining lithium faster? It's because reserves are defined by a combination of economics and technology. The Earth's crust contains 20 ppm of lithium now and in 1996 (or a million years ago, for that matter). The geology doesn't change but the effort put into identifying potential sources of lithium and means of extracting and purifying lithium does change. Geologically speaking, the Earth has a lot of lithium. World lithium reserves have been increasing faster than they have been depleted, because the industrial demand that causes reserve depletion also spurs additional research to identify potential lithium sources and extraction processes.