What Counts as Other Mining and Quarrying in Rev. 5?

In ISIC Rev. 5, published by the UN Statistics Division, other mining and quarrying is the residual extraction area in Section B. It includes quarrying stone for building, extracting sand and gravel, mining clays and kaolin, extracting salt, and mining other chemical and fertiliser minerals. It also includes peat extraction in broad terms, where that activity is treated as mining rather than agriculture.

What does “residual” mean here, and why is it not a leftover bin?

Residual sounds like an afterthought, but in a classification it is a deliberate design. Section B first gives dedicated space to coal and lignite, to crude petroleum and natural gas, and to metal ores, because those are large, distinct, and economically prominent kinds of extraction. Everything else that is still extraction, and that is not covered by those dedicated areas, needs a home, or it would fall out of the statistics altogether. Other mining and quarrying is that home. It is broad by design, because the minerals it covers are numerous, varied, and often locally important rather than globally traded.

That breadth is also a warning. A specific mineral should be checked in the UNSD structure rather than assumed to sit here from its name alone, because a mineral that sounds like it belongs here may in fact have its own heading, or may sit with a neighbouring area depending on how it is extracted and prepared. The title alone is rarely enough, since titles are short summaries and the fuller description carries the detail that decides borderline cases. Residual means “check here after the dedicated areas have been ruled out”, not “everything else automatically lands here”.

How do stone, sand, and gravel quarries actually work?

Quarrying stone produces dimension stone and crushed stone for construction and other uses. Dimension stone is cut in blocks or slabs, with the shape and appearance of the stone itself part of its value, while crushed stone is broken down for aggregate, road base, and similar bulk uses, where size and strength matter more than looks. Both come from a quarry face, but the work after the face diverges: cutting and dressing on one side, crushing and screening on the other. A limestone quarry supplying crushed stone for roads is a familiar illustration, and it shows the area well, because the product is unglamorous, local, and essential to building.

Sand, gravel, and clay extraction supplies construction, ceramics, and many industrial processes, and it often looks even simpler than quarrying: a sand pit supplying concrete aggregate, for example, digs or dredges loose material, screens it, and loads it for nearby building work. The simplicity is deceptive for classification purposes, because sand and gravel pits sit close to construction itself, and a reader can easily mistake the supplier of aggregate for a construction business. The difference is the work: extracting and preparing the raw material, rather than building with it. Once the aggregate is placed in a road or a building, that later work belongs elsewhere.

What about salt, chemical minerals, clays, and peat?

Salt, potash, and other chemical minerals are extracted for food, fertiliser, and chemical uses, though their processing may sit elsewhere. Salt may be mined from underground deposits, harvested from evaporation, or extracted by solution methods, and the method matters for how the work is described, even though the end product is familiar from every kitchen. Potash and other fertiliser minerals follow a similar pattern: the mine or brine operation produces a raw chemical mineral, and the fertiliser plant that blends or refines it into a finished product does a different kind of work. Keeping extraction and processing apart lets the statistics show both the raw mineral supply and the manufactured fertiliser output.

Clays and kaolin add another dimension. Clay mining supplies ceramics, bricks, paper, and a host of industrial uses, and kaolin, a fine white clay, is valued for its purity and brightness. The extraction itself is straightforward quarrying or pit work, but the uses are so varied that the same clay pit can appear, in everyday talk, to be serving several industries at once. In statistical terms it serves one area: extraction of non metal minerals, with the downstream industries counted separately when they use the clay. Peat extraction is included in broad terms where that activity is treated as mining rather than agriculture, and that qualification matters, since readers in a country where peat is handled differently should check national guidance.

How is a heading in this broad area checked?

Start by ruling out the dedicated Section B areas: is the material coal, oil or gas, or a metal ore? If not, look at the descriptions inside other mining and quarrying for the mineral in question, noting whether extraction is by quarrying, pit, or mine, and whether any preparation at the site is included. National guidance may then add local examples.

This page offers orientation only, as statistical classification material: it does not decide any reader’s code, principal activity, or registration. For a formal entry, confirm the heading with the national statistical institute or business register that holds the record, after describing the mineral, the extraction method, and any preparation at the site in plain words for that body to assess.