The world's largest deposits are in The Democratic Republic of Congo.

Malachite is a copper carbonate hydroxide mineral. Malachite often occurs as an opaque, green-banded mineral which has been used as articles of adornment, ornaments and pigments in paint.

Malachite often forms botryoidal, fibrous, or stalagmitic masses, in fractures and deep, underground spaces, where the water table and hydrothermal fluids provide the means for chemical precipitation.

Individual crystals are rare, but occur as slender oacicular prisms. Pseudomorphs after more tabular or blocky azurite crystals also occur. Malachite was extensively mined at the Great Orme Mines in Britain 3,800 years ago, using stone and bone tools. Archaeological evidence indicates that mining activities ended c. 600 BCE, with up to 1,760 tonnes of copper being produced from the mined malachite.

Archaeological evidence indicates that the mineral has been mined and smelted to obtain copper at Timna Valley in Israel for more than 3,000 years. Since then, malachite has been used as both an ornamental stone and as a gemstone. A 17th-century Spanish superstition held that having a child wear a lozenge of malachite would help them sleep, and keep evil spirits at bay.

Marbodus, archdeacon and schoolmaster at Angers, France recommended malachite as a talisman for young people because of its protective qualities and its ability to help with sleep. It has also historically been worn for protection from lightning and contagious diseases and for health, success, and constancy in the affections.

During the Middle Ages it was customary to wear it engraved with a figure or symbol of the Sun to maintain health and to avert depression to which Capricorns were considered vulnerable. In ancient Egypt the colour green (wadj) was associated with death and the power of resurrection as well as new life and fertility. Ancient Egyptians believed that the afterlife contained an eternal paradise, referred to as the "Field of Malachite", which resembled their lives but with no pain or suffering.