Critical Materials Atlas
About the project

An independent atlas of the critical-materials value chain.

The Critical Materials Atlas maps 32 critical raw materials the whole way — from the rock in the ground to the geopolitics of the refined metal — and turns each finding into a decision. It is built entirely from public data, its methods are open, and its numbers are meant to be checked.

Most maps of critical minerals stop at “who exports it.” This one follows each material through reserves → mine → refine → trade → chokepoint, then asks the question that matters: so what do you do about it? — who could break each chokepoint, whether the world could absorb a cut, and how exposed any one country really is.

What it is

An independent, non-commercial research project — not affiliated with, funded by, or representing any government, company, or institution. It exists to make the structure of critical-material supply legible from data anyone can inspect, and to be honest about the limits of what that data can show.

How it’s made

Bilateral trade is reconciled from UN Comtrade via CEPII’s BACI and validated against the official series (top-1 exporter matched 25/30, 3.5% share error). Mine and refining shares come from USGS and BGS World Mineral Statistics, cross-checked against the IEA Critical Minerals Dataset, the EU Critical Raw Materials 2023 study, and the USGS World Minerals Outlook. Every figure traces to an open source; the full reconciliation engine and all builders are public.

Editorial standards

  • Public data only. No paid or proprietary datasets — everything can be reproduced.
  • Every finding carries its method and its caveat. A claim is stated with how it was measured and where it breaks.
  • Not a forecast. Scenarios are labelled counterfactuals and sensitivities, never predictions.
  • Controls before claims. Any proximity/“prediction” result is tested against a diversity baseline and placebos before it is allowed to stand — and reported honestly, including when it fails.
  • Falsifiable by design. Limitations are stated, and there is a standing open invitation to break any claim in the atlas.

Reproducibility

Open data

Every layer is published as JSON — download or query it on the data page.

Open engine

The reconciliation pipeline and all builders are in the public repository.

Methods

The full methodology and validation are on the methodology page.

Robustness

Findings are re-run against alternative sources and truncations — see robustness and the open challenge.

Independence & authorship

The atlas is published independently as a public-data project. It is a research project, presented on its methods and its data rather than on any institutional badge — the standard it asks to be judged by is whether the numbers hold, not who produced them.

How to cite

Critical Materials Atlas (2026). An independent, public-data atlas of the critical raw-materials value chain. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21948855 @misc{critical_materials_atlas_2026, title = {Critical Materials Atlas: the critical raw-materials value chain}, author = {{Critical Materials Atlas}}, year = {2026}, publisher = {Zenodo}, doi = {10.5281/zenodo.21948855}, url = {https://criticalmaterialsatlas.org/}, note = {Independent public-data research project} }
Archived on Zenodo. The concept DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21948855 always resolves to the latest version; each release also has its own version DOI.

Not an official criticality assessment. A synthesis of public-data layers, offered for scrutiny.