Kışladağ Gold Mine, Uşak: Turkey's Largest Gold Producer
Kışladağ in Uşak province is a large open-pit mine that recovers gold from a low-grade porphyry deposit by heap leaching. Here is its geology, how it works and what it produced in 2025.
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Kışladağ, in the Eşme district of Uşak province in western Turkey, is one of the country's biggest gold mines. It is operated by TÜPRAG, the Turkish subsidiary of Canada's Eldorado Gold, and has been producing since 2006. According to Eldorado's published data, Kışladağ produced 168,701 ounces of gold in 2025, roughly 5.2 tonnes.
Geology
Kışladağ is a porphyry gold deposit. During the Miocene, in a period of intense volcanic activity in western Anatolia, magma rose into the crust and fractured the surrounding rock. Hot fluids moving through those fractures spread fine gold through a very large volume of rock.
The result is big but low grade. The rock contains less than a gram of gold per tonne, and the gold is invisible to the naked eye. There are no rich veins or nuggets here; profit comes from processing enormous tonnages.
How the gold is recovered
- Open-pit mining. Rock is blasted and hauled by large trucks.
- Crushing. The ore is broken into smaller pieces.
- Heap leaching. Crushed ore is stacked on large pads lined with impermeable membranes. A dilute cyanide solution is dripped over the heaps, dissolving the gold, and the solution is collected from the base.
- Recovery. Gold is captured from the solution on activated carbon, stripped and smelted into doré bars.
Heap leaching is one of the cheapest ways to process low-grade ore. It also requires careful engineering, which we discuss in a separate guide to how Turkey's gold mines work.
Why it matters
- Scale: Kışladağ alone accounts for a substantial share of Turkey's annual gold output.
- Longevity: Its large resource supports many more years of production, and the operator has invested in extending mine life.
- Local economy: The mine is a major employer around Uşak and Eşme.
Environmental debate
Like other large cyanide-using mines, Kışladağ has drawn concerns from local environmental groups about water, dust and land use. The operator points to closed-circuit water management and lined leach pads. The debate reflects a wider tension between mining and the environment in Turkey.
Other gold in Uşak
Lists based on MTA data also mention the Yıldız/Karaağaç area of Uşak as a potential gold site, which may be explored by licensed companies.
For visitors
The mine site is private and secured. Prospecting in the area is not legal without a licence. See is gold prospecting legal in Turkey? for details, and gold in Turkey for an overview of the country's other gold regions.