Cocoa production by country, 1961 to 2024
How much cocoa each country grows, how the map has shifted in sixty years, and how far to trust any one figure — including the ones that disagree with each other.
World, 2024
5.23 million tonnes
of dry beans, on FAOSTAT’s count
Largest producer
Côte d'Ivoire
36.1% of the world total
Top four together
66.1%
of the world’s cocoa, from 57 producing countries
A crop that grew 4.4-fold
In 1961 the world grew 1.19 million tonnes of cocoa. In 2024 it grew 5.23 million tonnes, a little below the 5.77 million tonnes reached in 2021. Demand for chocolate did that, but the more useful question is where the extra beans came from.
Mostly from more land. Over the same period the area harvested rose 2.5-fold while the yield from each hectare rose 1.8-fold, from 269 kg/ha to 475 kg/ha. Split the growth between the two and about 62% of it is extra area and 38% is extra yield. That is the arithmetic behind cocoa’s link to deforestation: for sixty years the crop has expanded faster outward than upward.
The split is a ChocolateHQ calculation. Production is area multiplied by yield, so the growth of one is exactly the growth of the other two combined; the shares above are each one’s part of that, measured on a logarithmic scale so they add to 100%. It rests on the area figure, which is the least well measured of the three.
World cocoa bean production, 1961 to 2024
Tonnes of dry beans per calendar year
Scroll the chart sideways to see the most recent years.
Source: FAO, FAOSTAT Crops and livestock products, release of 23 December 2025. The world total is FAOSTAT’s own aggregate.
Show these figures as a table
| Period | World production |
|---|---|
| 1961 | 1,186,344 t |
| 1962 | 1,213,517 t |
| 1963 | 1,280,491 t |
| 1964 | 1,544,590 t |
| 1965 | 1,229,159 t |
| 1966 | 1,344,376 t |
| 1967 | 1,390,511 t |
| 1968 | 1,246,581 t |
| 1969 | 1,418,863 t |
| 1970 | 1,543,399 t |
| 1971 | 1,638,853 t |
| 1972 | 1,510,723 t |
| 1973 | 1,402,063 t |
| 1974 | 1,556,439 t |
| 1975 | 1,561,625 t |
| 1976 | 1,366,511 t |
| 1977 | 1,452,505 t |
| 1978 | 1,495,374 t |
| 1979 | 1,659,869 t |
| 1980 | 1,670,637 t |
| 1981 | 1,735,254 t |
| 1982 | 1,615,319 t |
| 1983 | 1,604,641 t |
| 1984 | 1,810,579 t |
| 1985 | 2,013,982 t |
| 1986 | 2,118,377 t |
| 1987 | 2,055,901 t |
| 1988 | 2,563,305 t |
| 1989 | 2,640,977 t |
| 1990 | 2,532,122 t |
| 1991 | 2,521,946 t |
| 1992 | 2,677,031 t |
| 1993 | 2,672,284 t |
| 1994 | 2,671,269 t |
| 1995 | 2,985,765 t |
| 1996 | 3,237,671 t |
| 1997 | 3,017,083 t |
| 1998 | 3,302,840 t |
| 1999 | 2,975,444 t |
| 2000 | 3,338,447 t |
| 2001 | 3,222,354 t |
| 2002 | 3,298,178 t |
| 2003 | 3,705,145 t |
| 2004 | 4,069,753 t |
| 2005 | 4,043,868 t |
| 2006 | 4,299,922 t |
| 2007 | 3,898,910 t |
| 2008 | 4,265,984 t |
| 2009 | 4,211,455 t |
| 2010 | 4,328,770 t |
| 2011 | 4,553,618 t |
| 2012 | 4,613,755 t |
| 2013 | 4,486,395 t |
| 2014 | 4,742,114 t |
| 2015 | 4,817,236 t |
| 2016 | 4,777,619 t |
| 2017 | 5,235,269 t |
| 2018 | 5,505,867 t |
| 2019 | 5,520,075 t |
| 2020 | 5,683,749 t |
| 2021 | 5,771,233 t |
| 2022 | 5,622,906 t |
| 2023 | 5,123,486 t |
| 2024 | 5,233,245 t |
Every producing country, 2024
All 57 countries with a reported figure, largest first. The last column is the one most tables leave out: whether the figure is an official national return or something else. Only 20 of the 57 are official, though those account for 70% of the tonnage. Where a country has a page here, its name links to it.
| Country | Rank | Tonnes, 2024 | Share of world | Peak year | Status of the figure |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Côte d'Ivoire | 1 | 1,890,442 | 36.1% | 2022 | Official figure |
| Indonesia | 2 | 632,702 | 12.1% | 2010 | Official figure |
| Ghana | 3 | 530,000 | 10.1% | 2021 | From an external organisation |
| Ecuador | 4 | 403,699 | 7.7% | 2024 | Official figure |
| Nigeria | 5 | 350,000 | 6.7% | 2006 | From an external organisation |
| Cameroon | 6 | 320,000 | 6.1% | 2016 | From an external organisation |
| Brazil | 7 | 297,509 | 5.7% | 1986 | Official figure |
| Peru | 8 | 157,253 | 3.0% | 2022 | Official figure |
| Sierra Leone | 9 | 93,750 | 1.8% | 2024 | Official figure |
| Colombia | 10 | 67,678 | 1.3% | 2019 | Official figure |
| Dominican Republic | 11 | 57,461 | 1.1% | 2017 | Official figure |
| Uganda | 12 | 55,000 | 1.1% | 2024 | From an external organisation |
| DR Congo | 13 | 50,000 | 1.0% | 2024 | From an external organisation |
| Papua New Guinea | 14 | 45,000 | 0.9% | 2009 | From an external organisation |
| India | 15 | 30,388 | 0.6% | 2024 | Official figure |
| Liberia | 16 | 30,000 | 0.6% | 2016 | From an external organisation |
| Venezuela | 17 | 29,383 | 0.6% | 2012 | Imputed by FAO |
| Mexico | 18 | 28,448 | 0.5% | 2009 | Official figure |
| Togo | 19 | 25,000 | 0.5% | 2011 | From an external organisation |
| Guinea | 20 | 24,222 | 0.5% | 2011 | Imputed by FAO |
| Madagascar | 21 | 21,000 | 0.4% | 2024 | From an external organisation |
| Republic of the Congo | 22 | 15,000 | 0.3% | 2021 | From an external organisation |
| Tanzania | 23 | 15,000 | 0.3% | 2015 | From an external organisation |
| Guatemala | 24 | 11,701 | 0.2% | 2013 | Estimated value |
| Philippines | 25 | 10,844 | 0.2% | 2024 | Official figure |
| Bolivia | 26 | 5,825 | 0.1% | 2013 | Official figure |
| Solomon Islands | 27 | 4,200 | 0.1% | 2011 | From an external organisation |
| São Tomé and Príncipe | 28 | 4,000 | 0.1% | 1973 | From an external organisation |
| Haiti | 29 | 3,000 | 0.1% | 2015 | From an external organisation |
| Honduras | 30 | 2,000 | under 0.1% | 1993 | From an external organisation |
| Vanuatu | 31 | 1,500 | under 0.1% | 1991 | From an external organisation |
| Vietnam | 32 | 1,500 | under 0.1% | 2019 | From an external organisation |
| Cuba | 33 | 1,463 | under 0.1% | 1992 | Imputed by FAO |
| Sri Lanka | 34 | 1,150 | under 0.1% | 1992 | Official figure |
| Costa Rica | 35 | 1,000 | under 0.1% | 1962 | From an external organisation |
| Dominica | 36 | 1,000 | under 0.1% | 2016 | From an external organisation |
| Equatorial Guinea | 37 | 600 | under 0.1% | 1966 | From an external organisation |
| Guyana | 38 | 488 | under 0.1% | 2015 | Estimated value |
| Samoa | 39 | 483 | under 0.1% | 1963 | Imputed by FAO |
| Angola | 40 | 465 | under 0.1% | 1973 | Estimated value |
| Malaysia | 41 | 445 | under 0.1% | 1990 | Official figure |
| El Salvador | 42 | 370 | under 0.1% | 1990 | Estimated value |
| Panama | 43 | 291 | under 0.1% | 1984 | Official figure |
| Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | 44 | 231 | under 0.1% | 2024 | Imputed by FAO |
| Trinidad and Tobago | 45 | 231 | under 0.1% | 1963 | Official figure |
| Belize | 46 | 225 | under 0.1% | 2022 | Official figure |
| Fiji | 47 | 216 | under 0.1% | 1987 | Official figure |
| Grenada | 48 | 203 | under 0.1% | 1969 | Official figure |
| Jamaica | 49 | 201 | under 0.1% | 1987 | Official figure |
| Timor-Leste | 50 | 177 | under 0.1% | 2020 | Estimated value |
| Central African Republic | 51 | 136 | under 0.1% | 2007 | Estimated value |
| Thailand | 52 | 123 | under 0.1% | 2001 | Estimated value |
| Gabon | 53 | 100 | under 0.1% | 1970 | From an external organisation |
| Comoros | 54 | 44 | under 0.1% | 1966 | Estimated value |
| Micronesia | 55 | 31 | under 0.1% | 2007 | Imputed by FAO |
| Saint Lucia | 56 | 17 | under 0.1% | 1961 | Imputed by FAO |
| Suriname | 57 | 5 | under 0.1% | 1962 | Estimated value |
Source: FAOSTAT, release of 23 December 2025. Rank, share and peak year are ChocolateHQ calculations from those figures. “From an external organisation” means FAO took the figure from another body rather than from the country’s own return.
How concentrated the crop is
In 2024 two countries grew 48.2% of the world’s cocoa and four grew 66.1%. A bad season in one place is therefore a bad season for the whole market, which is most of the explanation for why West African weather moves the price of a chocolate bar. It is not a new condition. The names at the top have changed completely since 1961; the degree of concentration has barely moved.
| Year | Largest producer | Its share | Top two | Top four | Concentration index |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1961 | Ghana | 35.0% | 51.6% | 71.9% | 1,805 |
| 1980 | Côte d'Ivoire | 25.0% | 44.1% | 69.8% | 1,450 |
| 2000 | Côte d'Ivoire | 42.0% | 55.0% | 77.8% | 2,257 |
| 2010 | Côte d'Ivoire | 30.1% | 49.6% | 73.4% | 1,671 |
| 2024 | Côte d'Ivoire | 36.1% | 48.2% | 66.1% | 1,748 |
ChocolateHQ calculations from FAOSTAT figures. The concentration index is the Herfindahl-Hirschman index: each country’s percentage share squared, then summed. 10,000 would mean one country grew everything.
Where the world's cocoa is grown, by continent
Share of world production, per cent
- Africa
- Americas
- Asia
Scroll the chart sideways to see the most recent years.
Source: FAOSTAT continental aggregates, release of 23 December 2025; shares calculated by ChocolateHQ. Oceania, at about 1% throughout, is omitted from the chart and included in the download.
Show these figures as a table
| Period | Africa | Americas | Asia |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1961 | 70.4% | 27.7% | 0.7% |
| 1962 | 71.5% | 26.2% | 0.7% |
| 1963 | 72.1% | 25.6% | 0.6% |
| 1964 | 77.0% | 20.8% | 0.6% |
| 1965 | 71.1% | 26.3% | 0.7% |
| 1966 | 72.1% | 25.5% | 0.7% |
| 1967 | 70.7% | 26.8% | 0.7% |
| 1968 | 68.6% | 28.3% | 0.8% |
| 1969 | 70.8% | 26.3% | 0.8% |
| 1970 | 72.6% | 24.7% | 0.7% |
| 1971 | 71.9% | 25.4% | 0.8% |
| 1972 | 68.6% | 28.5% | 0.8% |
| 1973 | 68.9% | 28.3% | 1.0% |
| 1974 | 65.9% | 30.6% | 1.3% |
| 1975 | 64.3% | 31.8% | 1.4% |
| 1976 | 64.1% | 31.6% | 1.7% |
| 1977 | 64.4% | 31.6% | 1.9% |
| 1978 | 60.8% | 34.9% | 2.2% |
| 1979 | 61.1% | 34.4% | 2.6% |
| 1980 | 61.4% | 33.1% | 3.5% |
| 1981 | 61.3% | 32.3% | 4.3% |
| 1982 | 54.9% | 37.6% | 5.8% |
| 1983 | 55.5% | 36.2% | 6.4% |
| 1984 | 59.3% | 31.5% | 7.2% |
| 1985 | 54.2% | 36.5% | 7.3% |
| 1986 | 55.4% | 34.4% | 8.5% |
| 1987 | 58.5% | 28.2% | 11.5% |
| 1988 | 59.6% | 26.0% | 12.8% |
| 1989 | 57.8% | 26.1% | 14.1% |
| 1990 | 60.1% | 21.9% | 16.2% |
| 1991 | 57.0% | 24.6% | 16.9% |
| 1992 | 58.2% | 23.5% | 16.7% |
| 1993 | 56.4% | 24.2% | 17.8% |
| 1994 | 58.9% | 23.4% | 16.4% |
| 1995 | 64.0% | 20.6% | 14.3% |
| 1996 | 66.3% | 17.4% | 15.1% |
| 1997 | 64.3% | 19.1% | 15.0% |
| 1998 | 65.7% | 16.1% | 17.1% |
| 1999 | 67.0% | 15.9% | 15.7% |
| 2000 | 70.4% | 12.8% | 15.3% |
| 2001 | 65.6% | 14.1% | 19.0% |
| 2002 | 64.9% | 13.0% | 20.7% |
| 2003 | 66.0% | 12.5% | 20.2% |
| 2004 | 68.7% | 12.0% | 18.3% |
| 2005 | 67.3% | 11.7% | 19.7% |
| 2006 | 68.0% | 11.6% | 19.1% |
| 2007 | 65.6% | 12.6% | 20.3% |
| 2008 | 66.5% | 12.2% | 19.9% |
| 2009 | 64.3% | 14.0% | 20.1% |
| 2010 | 64.3% | 14.3% | 20.3% |
| 2011 | 68.1% | 14.5% | 16.2% |
| 2012 | 67.9% | 14.6% | 16.6% |
| 2013 | 67.2% | 15.1% | 16.6% |
| 2014 | 67.8% | 15.2% | 15.9% |
| 2015 | 70.1% | 16.2% | 12.9% |
| 2016 | 69.4% | 15.4% | 14.3% |
| 2017 | 71.6% | 15.8% | 11.8% |
| 2018 | 68.7% | 16.0% | 14.5% |
| 2019 | 67.9% | 17.3% | 14.0% |
| 2020 | 68.4% | 17.4% | 13.4% |
| 2021 | 69.9% | 17.3% | 12.0% |
| 2022 | 68.2% | 18.6% | 12.3% |
| 2023 | 65.3% | 20.6% | 13.2% |
| 2024 | 65.4% | 20.6% | 12.9% |
Countries that rose, and countries that left
The world total hides how much individual countries move. Ghana grew 35% of the world’s cocoa in 1961 and 10% in 2024. Malaysia went from a negligible crop to 247,000 t in 1990 and then all but abandoned it: the 2024 figure is 445 t. Neither change had much to do with how well cocoa grows there. Malaysia moved its land to oil palm and kept its grinding industry; Brazil lost a large part of its crop to a disease, witches’ broom.
| Country | Peak year | Tonnes at peak | Tonnes, 2024 | Share of world, 1961 | Share of world, 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ghana | 2021 | 1,047,385 | 530,000 | 35.0% | 10.1% |
| Brazil | 1986 | 459,477 | 297,509 | 13.1% | 5.7% |
| Malaysia | 1990 | 247,000 | 445 | 0.1% | under 0.1% |
| Indonesia | 2010 | 844,626 | 632,702 | 0.1% | 12.1% |
| Nigeria | 2006 | 485,000 | 350,000 | 16.6% | 6.7% |
| Ecuador | 2024 | 403,699 | 403,699 | 3.7% | 7.7% |
Two counts of the same crop
FAOSTAT is not the only count. The International Cocoa Organization publishes its own, built from trade and industry sources rather than government returns, and by crop year rather than calendar year. For most countries the two agree closely. Set FAOSTAT’s 2021 figures beside the ICCO’s for the 2020/21 season and they describe the same crop for Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon and Papua New Guinea to within a few per cent.
They do not agree about Indonesia. FAOSTAT has 650,612 t; the ICCO has 170,000 t, a difference of 3.8 times. That one country accounts for about 91% of the whole gap between the two world totals — 5.77 million tonnes on one count and 5.25 million tonnes on the other.
So when two sources give different figures for “world cocoa production”, the difference is mostly not a disagreement about the world. It is a disagreement about one national figure, and anything on this page that depends on Indonesia’s rank or share should be read with that in mind. Neither number is a measurement; nobody weighs a smallholder crop.
| Country | FAOSTAT, 2021 | ICCO, 2020/21 | FAOSTAT as a multiple of ICCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indonesia | 650,612 | 170,000 | 3.83× |
| Brazil | 302,126 | 200,000 | 1.51× |
| Ecuador | 302,094 | 365,000 | 0.83× |
| Côte d'Ivoire | 2,228,459 | 2,248,000 | 0.99× |
| Nigeria | 280,000 | 290,000 | 0.97× |
| Cameroon | 295,000 | 292,000 | 1.01× |
| Ghana | 1,047,385 | 1,047,000 | 1.00× |
| Papua New Guinea | 41,900 | 42,000 | 1.00× |
| World | 5,771,233 | 5,245,000 | 1.10× |
ICCO figures: ICCO Quarterly Bulletin of Cocoa Statistics, Vol. XLIX, No. 3, cocoa year 2022/23, table “Production of cocoa beans (thousand tonnes)”, published 31 August 2023, as the ICCO posted it on its own site. They are rounded to the nearest thousand tonnes. The cocoa year runs from 1 October to 30 September. A calendar year and a crop year share nine months, so differences of a few per cent mean nothing.
Reading further
Where cacao grows explains why the crop is confined to the belt it is. Cacao origins has a page for each of the countries linked above. For what a tonne is worth, see cocoa price history, and for the current season’s balance of supply against demand, cocoa supply and stocks.
Where these figures come from
- Publisher
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) — FAOSTAT: Crops and livestock products
- Release used
- Published 23 December 2025; retrieved 8 October 2026.
- Covers
- Sixty-two countries and territories with a reported cocoa bean figure, plus FAOSTAT's own world and continental aggregates. Calendar years 1961 to 2024.
- Units
- Production in tonnes of dry beans, area harvested in hectares, yield in kilograms per hectare.
- Licence
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- How it is revised
- Reissued about once a year, adding a year and revising earlier ones. A figure flagged as estimated or imputed is routinely replaced when a country reports.
- Next check here
- 15 January 2027. Annually, usually in December.
What was changed
- Rows for the item "Cocoa beans" (FAOSTAT item 661) were extracted from the bulk file; the header row was kept.
- The world and continental totals are FAOSTAT's published aggregates, not sums recomputed here.
- Sub-regional and economic-group aggregates were dropped, as was the combined China aggregate that duplicates its members.
- Values were rounded to whole tonnes, hectares and kilograms per hectare.
- FAOSTAT's flag on each production figure was kept, so an official figure can be told from an estimate.
What these figures cannot tell you
These are calendar years. The cocoa trade and the International Cocoa Organization count October-to-September crop years, so the two never line up exactly.
FAOSTAT publishes what governments report, and fills gaps with estimates. For several large producers the figure is flagged as coming from an external organisation or as an estimate rather than as an official return.
For some countries the national figure is far above the trade's own estimate. Indonesia is the largest case. Neither number is a measurement; they are two different counts of the same crop.
Area harvested is rarely surveyed directly for a tree crop grown on small mixed farms, so yield, which is production divided by area, inherits the weaknesses of both.
Download
Reusing them: FAO. 2025. FAOSTAT: Crops and livestock products. Accessed 8 October 2026. https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL. Licence: CC-BY-4.0. Shares, ranks and concentration measures are ChocolateHQ calculations from these figures and are not FAO statistics.