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Mining community

Community that houses miners

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors
3 min read
Source updated March 9, 2026
Image credit is listed at the end of this article.

A mining community, also known as a mining town or a mining camp, is a community that houses miners. Mining communities are usually created around a mine or a quarry.

01Historical mining communities

Australia

Austria-Hungary

Austrian Lands

Lower Hungarian mining towns

Upper Hungarian mining towns

Other Hungarian mining towns

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Canada

Czech Republic

(German name in parentheses)

Finland

Germany

In Germany, a Bergstadt refers to a settlement near mineral deposits vested with town privileges, Bergregal rights and tax exemption, in order to promote the economic development of the mining region.

Baden-Württemberg

Bavaria

Lower Saxony

North Rhine-Westphalia

Saxony

Saxony-Anhalt

Thuringia

Hong Kong

Indonesia

Nigeria

Norway

Poland

Slovenia

South Korea

United States

Alaska

Arizona

California

Colorado

Idaho

Iowa

Michigan

Minnesota

Montana

Nevada

New Mexico

South Dakota

Utah

Wisconsin

Dawson City, Yukon, Canada, in 1957.
Dawson City, Yukon, Canada, in 1957.
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Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Mining community”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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Related topics

Boomtown

A boomtown is a community that undergoes sudden and rapid population and economic growth, or that is started from scratch. The growth is normally attributed to the nearby discovery of a precious resource such as gold, silver, or oil, although the term can also be applied to communities growing very rapidly for different reasons, such as a proximity to a major metropolitan area, large infrastructure projects, or an attractive climate.

Coal town

A coal town, also known as a coal camp or patch, is a type of company town or mining community established by the employer, a mining company, which imports workers to the site to work the mineral find. The company develops it and provides residences for a population of miners and related workers to reside near the coal mine.

Man camp

Man camps are temporary workforce housing to accommodate a large influx of high-paid workers in the resource extraction industries, especially in Canada and the United States. Twentieth century boom-bust housing cycles related to the oil and gas industry made companies reluctant to invest in permanent housing for temporary workforces.