China became the world’s largest producer in 1986, and its output of cement—more than 2.3 billion tons in 2018—now accounts for nearly 60 percent of the global total. The most impressive illustration of China’s unprecedented construction effort is that in just the last two years the country emplaced more cement (about 4.7 billion tons) than the US did cumulatively throughout the entire 20th century (about 4.6 billion tons)!
