List of commodity booms

Merchant ships fill San Francisco harbor, 1850–51.
The stately Victorian architecture of Dunedin, New Zealand, is a result of the capital brought into the city by the Otago gold rush of the 1860s.
Uranium bubble of 2007

This is a list of economic booms created by physical commodities.

BoomCommodityTypeLocationDates
First Chilean wheat cyclewheatagriculturalChile1687–1810
Brazilian Gold RushgoldmetalBrazil18th century
Carolina gold rushgoldmetalNorth Carolina, USearly 19th century
Georgia Gold RushgoldmetalGeorgia, US1828 – early 1840s
Chilean silver rushsilvermetalChile1832 – c. 1855
Chilean copper boomcoppermetalChile1850 – c. 1875
Guano Eraguanohard commodityPeru1845 – c. 1870
California gold rushgoldmetalCalifornia, US1848–1855
Second Chilean wheat cyclewheatagriculturalChile1849 – 1870s
British Columbia gold rushesgoldmetalBritish Columbia, Canada1850–1941
Australian gold rushesgoldmetalAustralia1851–1906
Pennsylvania oil rushpetroleumfossil fuelnorthwestern Pennsylvania, US1859 – early 1870s
Otago gold rushgoldmetalCentral Otago, New Zealand1860s
Colorado River mining boomgoldmetalSouthwestern US1861–64
West Coast gold rushgoldmetalWest Coast, New Zealand1864–1867
Lapland gold rushgoldmetalLapland, Finland1870s
Azerbaijan oil boompetroleumfossil fuelAzerbaijan1870s
Black Hills gold rushgoldmetalDakota Territory, US1874 – c. 1880
Patagonian sheep farming boomwool, muttonagriculturalPatagonia1878 – 1920
Coromandel Gold RushesgoldmetalCoromandel Peninsula, New Zealand1870s – 1880s
Cripple Creek Gold RushgoldmetalCripple Creek, Colorado, USlate 19th to early 20th century
Bodie gold rushgoldmetalBodie, California, US1877–1880
First Amazon rubber boomrubberagriculturalAmazon basin1879–1912
Colorado Silver BoomsilvermetalColorado, US1879–1893
Canadian wheat boomwheatagriculturalCanada, especially Prairie Provincesc. 1880 – 1910, and 1914 – 1921
Indiana gas boomnatural gasfossil fuelIndiana, USearly 1880s – early 20th century
Ohio oil rushpetroleumfossil fuelNorthwest Ohio, US1880s – 1930s
Tierra del Fuego gold rushgoldmetalTierra del Fuego1883–1906
Witwatersrand Gold RushgoldmetalSouth Africa1886
Klondike Gold RushgoldmetalKlondike, Yukon, Canada1896–1899
Mount Baker gold rushgoldmetalWhatcom County, Washington, US1897 – mid-1920s
Nome Gold RushgoldmetalNome, Alaska, US1899–1909
Fairbanks Gold RushgoldmetalFairbanks, Alaska, USearly 1900s
Texas oil boompetroleumfossil fuelTexas, US1901 – 1940s
Cobalt silver rushsilvermetalCobalt, Ontario, Canada1903 – c. 1930
Stoy, Illinois oil boompetroleumfossil fuelStoy, Illinois, US1906–1910
Porcupine Gold RushgoldmetalNorthern Ontario, Canada1909 – 1950s
Kakamega gold rushgoldmetalKakamega, Kenyaearly 1930s
Vatukoula gold rushgoldmetalVatukoula, Fiji1932
Second Amazon rubber boomrubberagriculturalAmazon basin1942–1945
Alberta conventional oil boompetroleumfossil fuelAlberta, Canada1947 – 1980
New Zealand wool boomwoolagriculturalNew Zealand1951 – late 1950s
Bonanza marimbera [es]cannabisagriculturalColombia1974–1985
Mexican oil boompetroleumfossil fuelMexico1977–1981
1970s commodities boommultiplemultipleworldwide1970s
Cocaine eracocaineagriculturalColombia1985–1994
Merluza boomfishhard commodityChile1980s
Chilean salmon boomfishsoft commodityChile1986–2007
Bolivian gas boomnatural gasfossil fuelBolivia2001 – 2014
2000s commodities boommultiplemultipleworldwide2000s
Uranium bubble of 2007uraniummetalworldwide2005–2007
North Dakota oil boompetroleum, shale gasfossil fuelNorth Dakota, US2006 – c. 2015
Rhodium bubblerhodiummetalworldwide (primarily South Africa, Russia)2008
2020s commodities boommultiplemultipleworldwide2020s

References

  1. ↑ "NUEXCO Exchange Value (Monthly Uranium Spot)". Archived from the original on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 9 July 2010.
  2. ↑ Ward, Tony (1994). "The Origins of the Canadian Wheat Boom, 1880-1910". The Canadian Journal of Economics. 27 (4): 865–883. doi:10.2307/136188. JSTOR 136188.
  3. ↑ Bertram, Gordon W. (1973). "The Relevance of the Wheat Boom in Canadian Economic Growth". The Canadian Journal of Economics. 6 (4): 545–566. doi:10.2307/134090. JSTOR 134090.
  4. ↑ Rocha García, Ricardo. "La riqueza del narcotráfico y la desigualdad en Colombia, 1976-2012" [Drug trafficking wealth, and inequality of income in Colombia, 1976-2012]. Revista Criminalidad (in Spanish). 56 (2): 273–290.
  5. ↑ Saavedra G., Gonzalo (2007). "Prácticas Económicas en las Costas Insulares de Aisén. Testimonios de Persistencia y Transformación" (PDF). Actas del 6º Congreso Chileno de Antropología. VI Congreso Chileno de Antropología (in Spanish). Valdivia: Colegio de Antropólogos de Chile A. G. pp. 1696–1703.
  6. ↑ Scholz Cárdenas, Gonzalo Ignacio (2019). Siguiendo la merluza: Las migraciones interregionales en el Chile neoliberal, un estudio del surgimiento de ‘‘comunidades pesqueras porteñas’’ en Calbuco, Región de Los Lagos (1980-1991) (PDF) (Thesis) (in Spanish). Austral University of Chile. Retrieved 2024-10-29.
  7. ↑ Salgado Reyes, Rodrigo A. (2005). Análisis del desarrollo de la salmonicultura chilena (PDF) (Thesis) (in Spanish). Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.
  8. ↑ Gardner, Simon (March 11, 2009). "Virus, crisis: Perfect storm hits Chile salmon industry". Reuters.
  9. ↑ Miroff, Nick (2014-11-14). "Gas boom in Bolivia brings new wealth — and regrets for a lost opportunity". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2025-06-13.
  10. ↑ "El boom del gas generó para Bolivia $us 70 mil millones de ingresos en 20 años". El Periódico (in Spanish). 2024-02-24. Retrieved 2025-06-13.
  11. ↑ "Bolivia's Economic Dream Crumbles: The Perils of Unsustainable Policies". The Rio Times. 2024-10-16. Retrieved 2025-06-12.
  12. ↑ "Historical Rhodium Charts". Kitco. Retrieved 19 February 2010.