Steel Production by Country

Steel, an alloy of iron and carbon, underpins our modern world. This remarkable metal's ubiquity is a testament to its diversity, versatility, and recyclability. With a vast range of applications, from constructing buildings and automobiles to manufacturing appliances and weaponry, steel has become an indispensable material in countless industries.

Producing steel is a significant industrial activity, with only 64 out of over 190 countries manufacturing it in considerable quantities. Remarkably, the steel industry sustained itself surprisingly well amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with manufacturing falling less than 1% in 2020 compared to previous years. In 2021, global steel production made a triumphant come back, reaching 1,950.5 million tonnes (Mt), a 3.7% increase from 2020's output of 1,880.4 Mt.

Key findings from our analysis of the steel production dataset include:

• China clearly dominates steel production globally, eclipsing other nations by a significant margin with a production volume of 1.03M kilotons.
• The countries rounding out the top five steel producers globally after China are India, Japan, the United States, and Russia - highlighting the sheer scale of Asia and North America's manufacturing powerhouses. 
• Steel production correlates strongly with countries' economic scale and industrial capacity. The figures sharply drop after the top few countries, with the 10th largest producer, Iran, producing roughly a quarter of the steel compared to the 2nd largest, India.
• Certain nations manage to punch above their weight. Despite having smaller economies, countries like Vietnam, Ukraine, and Turkey have succeeded in scaling their steel industries and feature among the top 15 steel producers globally.
• Steel production is overwhelmingly concentrated in a few countries. The world's top 15 steel-producing countries account for over 90% of the global output.