Abstract The Urals form the geographic divide between Europe and Asia and represent one of the major metal producing regions of Russia, particularly for iron, copper, zinc, nickel, aluminum, and gold. The geology of the Urals and their mineral endowment are dominated by the Paleozoic Uralide orogen, one of the main orogenic belts that formed during the assembly of Pangea at the site of collision between the East European, Siberian, and Kazakh cratons where subduction led to oceanic arcs in the west through the Silurian to the Devonian and a continental arc in the east from the Devonian to the Carboniferous. Proterozoic sediment-filled rifts on the margin of the East European craton host giant epigenetic deposits of magnesite and siderite, with minor fluorite and base metals, and the sequences are intruded by major mafic dikes that host significant titanomagnetite and chromite resources. Silurian oceanic-arc complexes in the Sakmara allochthon host giant chromite deposits and some arc-related VMS deposits, and the Magnitogorsk and Tagil intraoceanic volcanic arcs host economically significant VMS deposits. The arcs collided with the East European craton during ocean closure, and postcollision intrusion of zoned gabbro-granite plutons into the arcs resulted in the formation of magnetite skarns. The suture zone between the arcs and the craton hosts small epigenetic gold deposits. East of these arcs, the East Uralian zone comprises a complex, fault-bounded collage of early Paleozoic rift sequences, volcanic arcs, and intrusions and marks the continent-continent collision between the East European craton and its accreted arc assemblage and the Kazakh craton. Rocks of the East Uralian zone are intruded by at least two postaccre-tionary granitoid suites, one of which is spatially and genetically linked to major orogenic gold deposits that are located along transcrustal shear zones; the other consists of arclike porphyritic andesites that host porphyry copper occurrences. The Trans-Uralian zone lies east of the East Uralian zone and is underlain by rocks of the Kazakh continental margin, in at least its eastern part. The Valerianovka continental magmatic arc, developed on the Kazakh continent, hosts undeveloped porphyry copper deposits and giant magnetite bodies. The Urals were exhumed and partially eroded during latest Paleozoic time. Deep weathering from the Mesozoic to the present resulted in the development of a number of significant lateritic deposits, auriferous gossans, bauxites, and shallow-marine iron deposits.