The Country That Produces Nearly Half Of The World's Olive Oil

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Did you know most of world's olive oil comes from the Mediterranean region? With its warm, dry climate and mild winters, this area offers ideal growing conditions for these tiny, oil-bearing fruits. On any given bottle of olive oil, you may see the countries of origin ranging from Italy to France and Portugal to Greece. But the major player in the oil game is Spain, which produces about 45% of the entire world's olive oil, or 1.4 million tons of oil every year.

This ancient country grows over 200 olive varieties and contains over two dozen olive oil-producing regions, with Andalusia (in the southernmost section of Spain) making the country's largest amount of extra virgin olive oil (which is very different from regular olive oil). Interestingly enough, even though the United States makes its own olive oil (99% of it comes from California), it is the largest importer of the good in the world. As far as consumption goes, the Greeks beat the Spanish, with each person consuming an average of 5.3 gallons of olive oil every year; Spaniards consume 3.4 gallons; Italians 2.9 gallons; and Americans trailing way behind, with citizens only eating 1 quart per year, per capita.

Spain has had a lot of time to perfect its enormous olive oil industry, with historians agreeing that Spaniards were producing the oil as early as 1100 B.C. because the Phoenicians (who lived in modern day Lebanon) were importing it at this time. Other records show that the Roman Empire was getting its olive oil supply from Andalusia. Of course, modern science and technology have helped producers understand how things like climate and soil affect olive production (much like the grape-wine industry), so the olive oil that comes from Spain today is undoubtedly much more consistent in terms of quality and flavor.

When we ranked Kirkland brand olive oils from Costco, we found the Spanish-produced oil to be second best of the bunch. And, when we ranked oils in terms of excellent reviews, multiple Spanish producers made our list of brands to seek out, including Nuñez de Prado, Graza, and Branche. In a 2024-2025 ranking of world olive oils by World's Best Olive Oils, nine of the top ten oils all came from Spain, most of them from the Andalusia region, with Rincon de la Subbetica earning the top spot.