Answer: The New York Federal Reserve Vault

Given the lore and mystery surrounding it, we can forgive you for assuming that Fort Knox, the highly classified and locked-down gold storage facility in Fort Knox, Kentucky holds the world’s largest gold reserve.

Fort Knox, however, holds a little under a third less gold than the largest gold vault around: The New York Federal Reserve Vault located in the heart of Manhattan. While Knox has a nothing-to-sneeze-at 4,600 tons of gold locked up tight, the vault of the New York Federal Reserve has an astounding 6,700 tons of gold under lock, key, and deep surveillance.

The gold is stored in a vault 80 feet below street level and carved right into the bedrock of Manhattan Island. Security protocol is incredibly strict; the vault cannot be accessed for any purpose without the presence and authorization of two staff members and an independent auditor from the Federal Reserve.

Although the name, The New York Federal Reserve Vault, implies that the vault is tasked with keeping gold on behalf of the Federal Reserve system, none of the gold in the vaults is part of the Federal Reserve. All the gold is stored by the Federal Reserve on behalf of the U.S. Government as well as foreign governments and organizations. The largest period of growth in the vaults holdings were during World War II when countries at the forefront of the conflicts that wished to secure their gold reserves did so by surreptitiously shipping them to the vaults deep beneath Manhattan.