Lithium Reserves: Zimbabwe

## What this measures

Lithium reserves in Zimbabwe, in metric tons of lithium content, as estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey in each yearly Mineral Commodity Summaries.

## Why it matters

Reserves are what can be mined at a profit with today's technology. They show where future supply can come from, and how long current production could last. government lists it as a critical mineral.

## How to read it

Each point is one edition's estimate, dated December 31 of the year before the edition (MCS 2026 gives reserves as of 2025). Jumps usually mean a government or company re-estimated its deposits, not that rock appeared or vanished.

## What it does not say

Reserves are an economic estimate, not a geological total: they rise with prices and exploration. Many countries report none ("NA"), and USGS sometimes counts one country inside another's figure; those years are missing. Resources, the larger pool that might become reserves, are not included.

## Source

U.S. Geological Survey, *Mineral Commodity Summaries* 2019 to 2026 (yearly; the 2026 edition is https://doi.org/10.3133/mcs2026). Each year's figure is taken from the newest edition that prints it, so later revisions replace earlier estimates; the newest year in each edition is a USGS estimate. Palanor read the figures from the world production and reserves table in each commodity chapter of the PDF editions (pubs.usgs.gov) and checked that the listed countries add up to the rounded world total. Licence: public domain. The report states: "Although this report is in the public domain, permission must be secured from the individual copyright owners to reproduce any copyrighted material contained within this report." The matching USGS data release (doi:10.5066/P1WKQ63T) is marked CC0 1.0 Universal. Updated each year when USGS publishes the new edition (late January).