History’s Biggest Gold Rushes, Ranked by Total Haul

Few forces in history have reshaped nations and economies quite like gold. From dusty frontier camps to booming new cities, gold rushes have drawn fortune-seekers across continents, sparking infrastructure-building, and sometimes conflict. Though most miners walked away with little more than calloused hands, gold rushes left behind cities, railways, and legends that endure today. In a few of these locations, gold mining endures, too: Not all famous gold deposits have run out yet.

At Kylar Mack, gold is one of our favorite topics: After all, we use plenty of it to make our gold bracelets, anklets, necklaces, and rings. So we got to wondering: How much gold was actually found in history’s biggest gold rushes? And how many of our gold ball bracelets could you make with all of that precious metal? After a bit of research and some number-crunching, we found the answers, and we also learned a lot about gold rush history.

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Ranking the Largest Hauls in Gold Rush History

1. Witwatersrand Gold Rush (South Africa)

The 1886 discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand, a mountain ridge in South Africa, transformed this country into one of the world’s leading gold producers. Centered around what would become Johannesburg, this rush has produced more than 1.5 billion ounces of gold so far, and it’s likely that nearly as much still remains to be mined. Some estimates cite the Witwatersrand basin as the source of up to 40% of all the gold ever mined on Earth! Industrial-scale mining quickly replaced individual prospectors, and today, Witwatersrand gold is still a huge part of the South African economy.

2. California Gold Rush (California, United States)

The California Gold Rush, starting with the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1848, drew roughly 300,000 fortune-seekers from around the world, creating instant boomtowns and transforming San Francisco from a sleepy port into a major city. In fact, San Francisco was literally built on the arrival of the prospectors: As more and more people arrived at the port and headed inland, they left their boats behind without a second thought, so when more timber was needed to build the booming city, the abandoned boats were used as building materials.

An estimated 125 million ounces of gold were pulled from California’s rivers and hills, sparking the largest migration in American history and accelerating U.S. westward expansion. The California Gold Rush also built the fortunes of industrialists who started out by catering to the needs of prospectors, including Levi Strauss, whose durable work pants became the iconic Levi’s jeans.

3. Victorian Gold Rush (Australia)

The discovery of gold in the southeastern state of Victoria in 1851 began a wave of migration that quadrupled Australia’s population within a decade. The Victorian Gold Rush produced more than 77 million ounces of gold, including the biggest gold nugget ever found: “Welcome Stranger,” a 158-pound nugget found in 1869. Gold mining fueled Melbourne’s transformation into one of the wealthiest cities of the 19th century, and it also reshaped Australia’s identity, drawing immigrants from China, Europe, and America in search of opportunity. 

4. Porcupine Gold Rush (Canada)

The establishment of rail lines into northern Ontario in the early 1900s led prospectors to seek their fortunes there, and their efforts paid off in 1909, when three large finds near Porcupine Lake set off Canada’s largest hard-rock mining rush. The Porcupine Gold Rush led to the founding of Timmins, one of Canada’s most productive mining towns, and generated around 67 million ounces of gold over the course of the 20th century. It marked a shift from short-lived stampedes to industrial mining that still continues today.

5. Black Hills Gold Rush (South Dakota, United States)

When Gen. George Custer was sent on an expedition to the Dakota Territory in 1874 to find a good spot to build a new fort, he returned with the news that there was gold in the Black Hills. The discovery ignited a gold rush, but it also ignited conflict. The Black Hills belonged to the Lakota Sioux under the terms of a 1868 treaty with the U.S. government, but that didn’t stop Custer’s expedition or the influx of white prospectors that followed. The rush led to the founding of Deadwood, the extraction of 50 million ounces of gold, and the Great Sioux War. While the height of the Black Hills gold rush ended in the 1880s, mining operations continued there until the early 2000s.

6. Pikes Peak Gold Rush (Colorado, United States)

With the cry “Pikes Peak or Bust!” roughly 100,000 prospectors surged into the Rocky Mountains region of present-day Colorado after substantial amounts of gold were found there in 1859. Though few struck it rich, the Pikes Peak Gold Rush, also called the Colorado Gold Rush, laid the groundwork for Denver and Colorado Springs and introduced mining infrastructure that supported later silver and gold booms. It yielded roughly 45 million ounces of gold.

7. Fairbanks Gold Rush (Alaska, United States)

Alaska has played host to multiple gold rushes, with the largest stemming from a 1902 find by Felix Pedro, an Italian immigrant, near the Tanana River. The Fairbanks Gold Rush transformed a trading post into Alaska’s interior hub. Unlike the chaotic stampedes of earlier eras, Fairbanks developed as a well-organized mining town supported by railways and dredges. The gold rush ultimately yielded around 18 million ounces of gold and helped solidify Alaska’s reputation as a mining frontier.

8. Klondike Gold Rush (Canada)

Perhaps the most storied of all northern gold rushes, the Klondike Gold Rush took place in the late 1800s, and the harsh, remote conditions that prospectors faced became legendary. Around 100,000 people flocked to the Yukon after gold was found near the Klondike River in 1896, most of them attempting to navigate the treacherous terrain of the White Pass and Chilkoot routes through the mountains in search of their fortunes. Few made it, but those who did helped found Dawson City and came away with nearly 10 million ounces of gold. Within a few years, the rush ended, with many of the prospectors lured away by a new find in Nome, Alaska.

9. Nome Gold Rush (Alaska, United States)

Unlike with most gold rushes, Nome’s gold wasn’t hidden in rivers or mountains — it lay scattered on the beach. Thousands flocked to the mouth of the Snake River on the Alaskan coast beginning in 1899 to scoop nuggets directly from the sand. It took only a few months for a scattering of tents to grow into the city of Nome, and though the height of the rush was over within a decade, gold mining in Nome, Alaska, is still a key part of the economy today. Around 5 million ounces of gold have been found here to date.

By the Numbers: The World’s Largest Gold Rushes

Here’s a quick breakdown of the amounts of gold found during the biggest gold rushes, along with how much all of that gold would be worth today. 

Gold value figures are based on the 10/27/25 closing price.

How Many Bracelets Could You Make With All That Gold?

If you turned all of that gold into bracelets, how many would you get? We did the math, basing our calculations on the amount of gold in a 3 mm gold ball bracelet. First, we added up how many bracelets you’d get if you made them from pure 24-karat gold. However, pure gold is much too soft for everyday wear, which is why you’ll rarely find 24K jewelry for sale. Instead, gold jewelry is most commonly made of 14-karat gold. So we took that into account, calculating how much pure gold you’d need for a 14K bracelet, then how many 14K bracelets you could make from these enormous quantities of gold.

If all this talk about gold jewelry is making you want to layer on some bling of your own, Kylar Mack is here to help. With our jewelry, you don’t have to settle for one or two pieces that spend most of their time in your jewelry box: Our pieces are durable enough for everyday wear, and they’re affordable enough that you can stack bracelets to create a look that’s all your own. 

Sources:
https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=1125
https://resources.vic.gov.au/geology-exploration/minerals/metals/gold/gold-mining-in-victoria
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/yuch/golden_places/chap5.htm
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/segweb/books/edited-volume/1223/chapter-abstract/107032562/Witwatersrand-Gold-FieldsGeology-Genesis-and
https://www.money.org/money-museum/virtual-exhibits-americana-the-colorado-gold-rush/
https://epd.georgia.gov/sites/epd.georgia.gov/files/related_files/site_page/B-112.pdf
https://www.newsminer.com/a-brief-look-at-fairbanks-rich-deposit-of-mining-history/article_97e94e22-e565-11ee-8c81-a73f92b08126.html
https://mininghalloffame.ca/timmins-mine-finders-builders/
https://history.sd.gov/museum/docs/LifeUnderground.pdf
https://www.alaskaminers.org/mining-history-in-ak