overview›geographic origins

geographic distribution of holdings

Records in the public catalogue are grouped below by the locality reported at submission. Counts reflect the catalogue's present state and are recomputed on each request. Where the submitted locality is a regional shorthand (e.g. "Atacama plateau") the registry has, after consultation with the submitter or independent corroboration, retained the broader designation rather than impose a precision the original material does not warrant.

records in the public mirror: 369 · distinct localities recorded: 81 · top 40 localities account for 76.4% of holdings

by locality · top 40

#	locality	records	share
01	Boudi, Souss-Massa, Morocco	10	2.71%
02	Kongsberg, Buskerud, Norway	10	2.71%
03	Tsumeb, Otjikoto, Namibia	10	2.71%
04	Bancroft, Ontario, Canada	9	2.44%
05	Dzhezkazgan, Karaganda, Kazakhstan	9	2.44%
06	Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, Brazil	9	2.44%
07	Anjanabonoina, Madagascar	8	2.17%
08	Bahia, Brazil	8	2.17%
09	Chuquicamata, Antofagasta, Chile	8	2.17%
10	Dundas, Tasmania, Australia	8	2.17%
11	Erongo Mountains, Erongo, Namibia	8	2.17%
12	Mont Saint-Hilaire, Quebec, Canada	8	2.17%
13	Ratnapura, Sabaragamuwa, Sri Lanka	8	2.17%
14	Rio Marina, Elba, Italy	8	2.17%
15	Schwarzwald, Baden-Württemberg, Germany	8	2.17%
16	Shimen, Hunan, China	8	2.17%
17	Sudbury basin, Ontario, Canada	8	2.17%
18	Yaogangxian mine, Hunan, China	8	2.17%
19	Mibladen, Khénifra, Morocco	7	1.90%
20	Mogok, Mandalay, Myanmar	7	1.90%
21	Red Cloud Mine, La Paz County, Arizona, USA	7	1.90%
22	Skardu, Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan	7	1.90%
23	South Crofty mine, Cornwall, England	7	1.90%
24	Toroku mine, Miyazaki, Japan	7	1.90%
25	Broken Hill, NSW, Australia	6	1.63%
26	Carrock mine, Cumbria, England	6	1.63%
27	Inder, Atyrau, Kazakhstan	6	1.63%
28	Kimberley district, Northern Cape, South Africa	6	1.63%
29	Kovdor massif, Murmansk, Russia	6	1.63%
30	Lascari, Sicily, Italy	6	1.63%
31	Příbram, Central Bohemian Region, Czech Republic	6	1.63%
32	Boron, Kern County, California, USA	5	1.36%
33	Cavnic, Maramureș, Romania	5	1.36%
34	Cínovec, Krušné hory, Czech Republic	5	1.36%
35	Freiberg district, Saxony, Germany	5	1.36%
36	Imider mine, Drâa-Tafilalet, Morocco	5	1.36%
37	Kashio mine, Nagano, Japan	5	1.36%
38	Panasqueira, Castelo Branco, Portugal	5	1.36%
39	Schneeberg, Saxony, Germany	5	1.36%
40	Trepča complex, Mitrovica, Kosovo	5	1.36%
—	remaining 41 localities (long tail; one-off and small-count entries)	87	23.58%

notes on locality reporting

The registry's locality field is descriptive rather than cadastral. It records what the submitter, or the registrar after consultation, considered the most informative answer to the question "where did this come from?". This deliberate looseness is preserved on the public mirror; subscribers wishing to ingest the data into a gazetteer should expect to do their own normalisation.

A small number of holdings list the locality as withheld at submitter's request. These are not omitted from the counts above; they are listed verbatim with no further detail. The registrar will, on application by an established researcher, disclose a withheld locality where doing so does not breach the original submitter's stated condition.

The distribution shown here is dominated by a small number of well-collected localities and a long tail of one-off entries. This is the ordinary shape of an unattributed-submission catalogue and is documented in methodology for completeness. No inference about the geography of the underlying material's origin should be drawn from the relative weights shown here.