Central banks hold gold reserves which are used over time to achieve various objectives. It often happens that a country’s gold reserves are not held in its own central bank, but are held in the central banks of other countries. This choice can take place for various reasons, which will not however be analyzed in this paper which will be focused on the realization of the rank of countries by gold reserves.
Let’s see now see the top 52 countries that have with the largest gold reserves in the world. In the top of the ranking of the countries by gold reserves are the United States with 8134 tons, followed by Germany with 3362 tons, Italy with 2452 tons, France with 2436 tons and Russia with 2295 tons. In the last three places of the ranking there are Jordan with 44 tons of gold, Bolivia with 43 tons and Bulgaria with 41 tons.
| Rank | Country | Tonnes | % of foreign reserves |
| 1 | United States | 8134 | 78% |
| 2 | Germany | 3362 | 75% |
| 3 | Italy | 2452 | 69% |
| 4 | France | 2436 | 65% |
| 5 | Russian Federation | 2295 | 22% |
| 6 | China | 1948 | 3% |
| 7 | Switzerland | 1010 | 5% |
| 8 | Japan | 765 | 3% |
| 9 | India | 688 | 7% |
| 10 | Netherlands | 613 | 67% |
| 11 | Turkey | 515 | 35% |
| 12 | ECB | 505 | 35% |
| 13 | Taiwan | 424 | 4% |
| 14 | Kazakhstan | 392 | 64% |
| 15 | Portugal | 383 | 80% |
| 16 | Uzbekistan | 348 | 59% |
| 17 | Saudi Arabia | 323 | 4% |
| 18 | United Kingdom | 310 | 10% |
| 19 | Lebanon | 287 | 39% |
| 20 | Spain | 282 | 20% |
| 21 | Austria | 280 | 55% |
| 22 | Poland | 229 | 8% |
| 23 | Belgium | 227 | 40% |
| 24 | Philippines | 180 | 9% |
| 25 | Algeria | 174 | 17% |
| 26 | Venezuela | 161 | 82% |
| 27 | Thailand | 154 | 3% |
| 28 | Singapore | 127 | 2% |
| 29 | Sweden | 126 | 13% |
| 30 | South Africa | 125 | 13% |
| 31 | Mexico | 120 | 3% |
| 32 | Libya | 117 | 8% |
| 33 | Greece | 114 | 58% |
| 34 | Republic of Korea | 104 | 1% |
| 35 | Romania | 104 | 12% |
| 36 | Iraq | 96 | 8% |
| 37 | Egypt | 80 | 12% |
| 38 | Australia | 80 | 10% |
| 39 | Kuwait | 79 | 8% |
| 40 | Indonesia | 79 | 3% |
| 41 | Brazil | 67 | 1% |
| 42 | Denmark | 67 | 5% |
| 43 | Pakistan | 65 | 20% |
| 44 | Argentina | 62 | 9% |
| 45 | Qatar | 57 | 8% |
| 46 | United Arab Emirates | 51 | 3% |
| 47 | Belarus | 50 | 40% |
| 48 | Finland | 49 | 21% |
| 49 | Cambodia | 46 | 12% |
| 50 | Jordan | 44 | 16% |
| 51 | Bolivia | 43 | 50% |
| 52 | Bulgaria | 41 | 7% |
The data used in this work have been collected from the main economic and financial sites. For all of the countries, the data refers to May 2021.