Phosphates are the naturally occurring form of the element phosphorus, found in many phosphate minerals. In mineralogy and geology, phosphate refers to a rock or ore containing phosphate ions. Inorganic phosphates are mined to obtain phosphorus for use in agriculture and industry.
The largest global producer and exporter of phosphates is Morocco. Within North America, the largest deposits lie in the Bone Valley region of central Florida, the Soda Springs region of southeastern Idaho, and the coast of North Carolina. Smaller deposits are located in Montana, Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina. The small island nation of Nauru and its neighbor Banaba Island, which used to have massive phosphate deposits of the best quality, have been mined excessively. Rock phosphate can also be found in Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Western Sahara, Navassa Island, Tunisia, Togo, and Jordan, countries that have large phosphate-mining industries.
Phosphorite mines are primarily found in:
* North America:  United States, especially Florida, with lesser deposits in North Carolina, Idaho, and Tennessee
* Africa: Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Niger, Senegal, Togo, Tunisia, Mauritania
* Middle East: Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Syria, Iran and Iraq, at the town of Akashat, near the Jordanian border.
* Central Asia: Kazakhstan
* Oceania: Australia, Makatea, Nauru, and Banaba Island
In 2007, at the current rate of consumption, the supply of phosphorus was estimated to run out in 345 years. However, some scientists thought that a "peak phosphorus" would occur in 30 years and Dana Cordell from Institute for Sustainable Futures said -ton crust, albeit at predominantly lower concentration than the deposits counted as reserves, which are inventoried and cheaper to extract. If it is assumed that the phosphate minerals in phosphate rock are mainly hydroxyapatite and fluoroapatite, phosphate minerals contain roughly 18.5% phosphorus by weight. If phosphate rock contains around 20% of these minerals, the average phosphate rock has roughly 3.7% phosphorus by weight.
Some phosphate rock deposits, such as Mulberry in Florida, are notable for their inclusion of significant quantities of radioactive uranium isotopes. This is a concern because radioactivity can be released into surface waters from application of the resulting phosphate fertilizer.
In December 2012, Cominco Resources announced an updated JORC compliant resource of their Hinda project in Congo-Brazzaville of 531 million tons, making it the largest measured and indicated phosphate deposit in the world.
Around 2018, Norway discovered phosphate deposits almost equal to those in the rest of Earth combined.
In July 2022 China announced quotas on phosphate exportation.
The largest importers in millions of metric tons of phosphate are Brazil 3.2, India 2.9 and the USA 1.6.