According to World Gold Council's latest rankings (as of April 2017) United States of America has the highest gold reserve followed by Germany with India at number ten position.
Below are the top 10 countries having the largest gold reserves.
| Rank | Country | Gold Reserve (in tonnes) |
|---|
| 1 | United States | 8,133.50 |
| 2 | Germany | 3,377.90 |
| 3 | Italy | 2,451.80 |
| 4 | France | 2,435.80 |
| 5 | China | 1,842.60 |
| 6 | Russia | 1,655.40 |
| 7 | Switzerland | 1,040.00 |
| 8 | Japan | 765.2 |
| 9 | Netherlands | 612.5 |
| 10 | India | 557.8 |
What is a gold reserve?
Gold reserve is nothing but simply the amount of gold held by a national central bank (in case of India it will be 'Bank of India') of a particular country. The gold reserve is a store of value and acts as a guarantee to redeem promises to pay depositors, paper money holders, trading peers and also to secure the currency.
Central banks of most countries do not allow independent audits of their gold reserves so the disclosed amount of gold by a particular country cannot be trusted.
In the past countries have been accused of manipulating gold reserve data or at-least not being transparent. For example, China increased its gold reserves by about 57 percent from 1,054 to 1,658 metric tons announcing it on the 17th of July 2015 though disclosed its official gold reserves only for the first time in six years.
Ethically a country can print only a particular amount of paper money depending on it's gold reserve. While in time of war gold reserve is considered to be the nation's key financial asset.
