Gold is the most malleable and ductile of all metals. A single troy ounce of gold can be beaten into a flat sheet measuring roughly 5 meters on a side. Thin sheets of gold, known as gold leaf, can be as thin as 0.000127 millimeters, or about 400 times thinner than a human hair.
Pure gold is soft and is usually alloyed with other metals, such as silver, copper, platinum or palladium, to increase its strength. Gold alloys are used to make jewelry, decorative items, dental fillings and coins.
Gold is a good conductor of heat and electricity and does not tarnish when it is exposed to the air, so it can be used to make electrical connectors and printed circuit boards.
Even with modern technology gold is still incredibly difficult to find. In total about 160,000 tonnes of gold have been taken out of the Earth. Gold is being mined at about 2,600 tonnes a year, so the above ground supply is expanding at 1.6% per annum.
This newly mined supply means the world's cube of gold - currently 20.2 metres across - is growing by just 11 cm per year.
Demand for gold is widely dispersed around the world. East Asia, the Indian sub-continent and the Middle East accounted for approximately 66% of consumer demand in 2012. India, Greater China (China, Hong Kong and Taiwan), US and Turkey represented well over half of consumer demand.
A different set of socio-economic and cultural incentives drives each market, creating a diverse range of factors influencing demand. Rapid demographic and other socio-economic changes in many of the key consuming nations are also likely to produce new patterns of demand in the foreseeable future.
Jewellery has consistently been the largest component of annual gold demand. In the 12 months to December 2012, appetite for jewellery amounted to around US$101.8 billion.
India is the largest consumer in volume terms, accounting for 28% of demand in 2012. The last five years (to end-2012) saw an increase in value terms of around 430%. In 2012 alone, investment attracted net inflows of approximately US$81.8bn.
Since 2003, investment has represented the strongest source of growth in demand. The last five years to the end of 2012 saw an increase in value terms of around 435%. In 2012 alone, investment attracted net inflows of approximately US$82.3bn.