[2] China accounts for the majority of global production; other producers include Russia, Ukraine, North Korea, South Africa, Vietnam, Australia, Canada, and the United States.

[1][5][6] The term is applied to those varieties of coal which do not give off tarry or other hydrocarbon vapours when heated below their point of ignition.

The term is also used to refer to some carboniferous rock strata found in both Britain and in the Rhenish hill countries, also known as the Culm Measures.

[10] In American English, "culm" refers to the waste or slack from anthracite mining,[7] mostly dust and small pieces not suitable for use in home furnaces.

Anthracite differs from ordinary bituminous coal by its greater hardness (2.75–3 on the Mohs scale),[13] its higher relative density of 1.3–1.4, and luster, which is often semi-metallic with a mildly green reflection.

The heat content of anthracite coal consumed in the United States averages 29 MJ/kg (25 million Btu/ton), on the as-received basis, containing both inherent moisture and mineral matter.

The practice known as reclamation is being applied to culm piles antedating laws requiring mine owners to restore lands to their approximate original condition.

Chemically, anthracite may be considered as a transition stage between ordinary bituminous coal and graphite, produced by the more or less complete elimination of the volatile constituents of the former, and it is found most abundantly in areas that have been subjected to considerable stresses and pressures, such as the flanks of great mountain ranges.

The compressed layers of anthracite that are deep mined in the folded Ridge and Valley Province of the Appalachian Mountains of the Coal Region of East-central Pennsylvania are extensions of the same layers of bituminous coal that are mined on the generally flat lying and undeformed sedimentary rocks further west on the Allegheny Plateau of Kentucky and West Virginia, Eastern Ohio, and Western Pennsylvania.

[14] Anthracite shows some alteration by the development of secondary divisional planes and fissures so that the original stratification lines are not always easily seen.

More recently, large-scale mining of anthracite took place across the western part of the South Wales Coalfield until the late 20th century.

Legend has it that Allen fell asleep at the base of Broad Mountain and woke to the sight of a large fire because his campfire had ignited an outcrop of anthracite coal.

Anthracite was first experimentally burned as a residential heating fuel in the US on 11 February 1808, by Judge Jesse Fell in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on an open grate in a fireplace.

Anthracite differs from wood in that it needs a draft from the bottom, and Judge Fell proved with his grate design that it was a viable heating fuel.

With the development of the hot blast in 1828, which used waste heat to preheat combustion air, anthracite became a preferred fuel, accounting for 45% of US pig iron production within 15 years.

The advertisements featured a white-clad woman named Phoebe Snow and poems containing lines like "My gown stays white / From morn till night / Upon the road of Anthracite".

Internal combustion motors driven by the so-called "mixed", "poor", "semi-water" or "Dowson gas" produced by the gasification of anthracite with air (and a small proportion of steam) were at one time the most economical method of obtaining power, requiring only 1 pound per horsepower-hour (0.6 kg/kWh), or less.

Large quantities of anthracite for power purposes were formerly exported from South Wales to France, Switzerland and parts of Germany.

Anthracite was an authorised fuel[22] in terms of the United Kingdom's Clean Air Act 1993, meaning that it could be used within a designated Smoke Control Area such as the central London boroughs.

[24] Mining of anthracite coal continues to this day in eastern Pennsylvania, and contributes up to 1% to the gross state product.

The large coal is raised from the mine and passed through breakers with toothed rolls to reduce the lumps to smaller pieces.

[19] Anthracite dust can be made into briquettes and is sold in the United Kingdom under trade names such as Phurnacite, Ancit and Taybrite.

A vein of anthracite that caught fire in Centralia, Pennsylvania, in 1962 has been burning ever since, turning the once-thriving borough into a ghost town.

[31] Anthracites of newer Tertiary or Cretaceous age are found in the Crowsnest Pass part of the Rocky Mountains in Canada and at various places in the Andes in Peru.