Top 40 countries with the most gold

46 comments
  1. I wonder what percentage of the German held gold is actually stolen gold from the occupied countries and victims of WW2.

  2. I’d really like to see the economic reasoning of the French central bank and the UK central bank for each of their holdings. The two economies are almost exactly the same in size, but they each have very different policies on reserves. I guess the UK is the outlier, not that it’s bad, I have no idea, it’s just a curiosity.

  3. The German gold reserves have nothing to do with the Nazi era. Germany had no gold reserve anymore after the war. The reason it acquiered such a large one in the 50/60s was that the gold-based Bretton-Woods system which governed monetary exchange between states lead to an accumulation of gold for countries that export more than they import which Germany did a lot. (That’s what Wikipedia says. I’m not sure how this worked in detail.)

  4. Wait…I remember Germany asking to get its gold back from the US in the early 2000’s and it became a problem because the US had some “difficulties” finding it. I cant remember what the end result was.

  5. Would be nice if the US could let other countries check for themselves that the gold is still there

    They don’t just store their gold but also the gold from different countries

  6. In 2002 Portugal had 607 tonnes, yet for some stupid reason the Bank of Portugal sold 224 tonnes between 2002 and 2006. I don’t know why this isn’t talked about more here in Portugal, in my view it was a crime, there was no reason to sell at all, nevermind so much.

    Sources:
    https://www.rtp.pt/noticias/economia/venda-de-reservas-de-ouro-rende-372-me-a-capital_n75641

    https://www.dn.pt/arquivo/2006/banco-de-portugal-vendeu-20-toneladas-de-ouro-645878.html

    Edit: We actually had 866 tonnes by the end of the dictatorship, in 1974, so there’s that.

  7. Ironically too few African and South American countries. It’s a shameful list, really. Most of this gold is stolen.

  8. How tf is Lebanon so high up in this list when the country is considered dirt poor? That’s infuriating!

  9. Considering our absolute love for hard cash compared to virtual money and our paranoia when we even hear the word “inflation”; harbouring gold like a dragon as insurance is hardly suprising

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