The major regions where India's high-grade iron ore is mined, concentrated in the Peninsular plateau States and supplying the country's iron and steel industry.
- India has large reserves of iron ore, mostly haematite (high iron content) and magnetite; ore is found chiefly in the old Peninsular rocks.
- Odisha-Jharkhand belt: high-grade haematite in the Singhbhum (Jharkhand) and Mayurbhanj-Kendujhar-Bonai (Odisha) region, India's richest.
- Durg-Bastar-Chandrapur belt: in Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra, with the famous Bailadila range in Chhattisgarh, much of whose ore is exported through Visakhapatnam.
- Ballari-Chitradurga-Tumakuru belt in Karnataka (including Kudremukh, a magnetite deposit), and the Maharashtra-Goa belt (lower-grade ore).
- The location of iron ore near coal (the Chota Nagpur region) is a key reason the iron and steel industry clustered in eastern India.
The named belts and States, the haematite-magnetite distinction, the Bailadila and Kudremukh deposits, and the iron-coal proximity behind steel-plant location are recurring minerals facts.
Haematite (reddish, high iron content, most used in India) versus magnetite (black, highest iron content, as at Kudremukh). The richest belt is the Odisha-Jharkhand belt, not Karnataka.
Iron ore from four Peninsular belts (Odisha-Jharkhand richest, plus Durg-Bastar, Karnataka, Maharashtra-Goa); mostly haematite, located near coal.