Leveling Mining 1-375:
1-75 / Copper
This parts the easy part, it should only take around 40-50 nodes at most and they spawn like crazy all over the starting zones. Keeping the copper you gain for either leveling blacksmithing or at the very least selling it on the AH is a good idea, due to BC alot of people aren't mining the copper now so dig in. Finally you'll need to talk to the mining trainer at 50 skill for journeyman mining.
Alliance:
Humans:
Humans start in my favorite mining zone, elwynn forest, seriously it's full of the stuff. Just run up to goldshire, head along the path past the large lake and pick up whats down there, and then check out the logging camp/surrounding areas. Just doing this should gain you almost everything you need, hitting the mountains at the top of the map should yield a few veins as well, generally every single ore spot will have 2-5 mobs nearby/on-top, look for groups.
Dwarves and Gnomes:
Given the general association of dwarves with mining you'd think it was the best area to start right? Well if you did I'd be here to inform you that your intuition is correct, although *my* favorite zone is elwynn forest Dun Morogh takes the cake as copper king, it's rather simple here actually, just run around everywhere with the ore detector running and you'll be 65 in no time.
Night Elves:
Sadly for you NE it seems that a lush forest enviroment isn't condusive to the production of precious minerals, copper, so you'll have to head down to darkshore to start your skill gain. Once you've reached Auberdine head for the cliffs, east, and mine everything on the way.
The moonkin caves along the way generally hold 1-4 spots each, sometimes actually at the very back of the cave itself, and should get you a bit of skill before you hit the cliffs. The cliffs themselves hold a medium amount of ore, following them south will yield a good amount until you hit ashenvale. Once you've done this head west to the edge of the forest/coastal area and then north back up to Auberdine. Follow this pattern in a semi-square/circle until you hit 65 skill.
Horde:
Undead:
Your journey to gain mining skill as undead will begin at Deathknell, this is a fairly easy zone to mine due to it's somewhat simple map design, not much in the way of big barriers, walls, annoying bugs, etc. to stop you. First thing to do is to head south following the cliffs all the way around till you hit undercity, run past as the city contains no ore, continue to follow on until you hit the Bulwark/Western Plaguelands and then north up to the scarlet monastery.
After you've hit the monastery skip around it and down to the coast, follow the coast west till you hit the cliffs again, at those cliffs head south to our starting point and loop again.
Orcs and Trolls:
Orcs and Trolls have it easy, just like the Dwarves/Gnomes, it's something of a just run back and forth around the huge barren red wasteland of a starting zone with ore finding on, profit. Seriously though, like all the other zones you'll find it easy to get alot of ore by following the edges/cliffs, and durotar has a lot of edges/cliffs, and another easy path for low-levels is between orgrimmar and Sen'Jin Village(that small troll place immediately across from the valley of trials.)
Tauren:
Mulgore is rather simple, it's a big flat plain with ore along the corners. Just run around the edges of the zone with ore detection on and mine everything in sight, although personally I find mulgore to be the most boring zone I must say it's also the least complicated/mob heavy/dangerous of them all.
75-125 / Incendite Ore/Tin/Silver
This'll probably be the easiest stretch in the game If you're lucky, otherwise it's one of the more painful times in your mining life. For this leveling period I'll let you in on a little spot inside a cave in the wetlands, incendite ore. One thing, you'll want a mount for leveling up mining, It's extremely painful otherwise, especially at the higher skill levels where every node is spaced out across the entire map making gaining skill quite hard.
Horde & Alliance:
Incendite Ore, the miracle cure for skill levels 75-125. You'll find this ore in a cave at Thelgan Rock, located quite close to the entrance to Dun Algaz and used for an alliance quest, thankfully Horde can mine it as well anyway. The Ore itself is uneeded and can't be smelted into anything, instead you'll just want it for the skill gains and then will end up deleting it, good thing is the nodes re-spawn extremely fast and easily so you can mine this uneeded ore for only a small period of time to gain the required skill.
Lesser Bloodstone:
This is the second "Miracle" ore, used in a quest chain started in Booty Bay this fast spawning ore is located in a cave east of Hammerfall. After mining the needed ore to hit skill level 125 you can keep 4 pieces, the required amount for the quest, if you feel like turning it in down at Corporal Kaleb in the booty bay tavern, otherwise just delete it.
125 - 175 / Iron/Gold
Thousand Needles/Shimmering Flats:
This path starts at the bottom of the great lift, first head west past camp ethok while mining everything along the way. As with all the other zones it seems that ore congregates along the edges/cliffs of the map so follow the cliff face all the way west until you hit the border between Thousand Needles/Feralas.
Once you've hit the border go south, yet again heading down to the cliffs and your going to follow them east past Highperch, though you can stop in here for a bit more ore, and on beyond even freewind post. You're going to want to do a tour of the shimmering flats once you get all the way east, it's a big circle so that shouldn't require much of a guide, once you've finished that go along the north cliffs of Thousand Needles until you reach the great lift, then start the path again.
Desolace:
Desolace is a rather easy place to mine, it is fortunately a rather large circle, just with a few large bumps/obstacles scattered around it. If you're horde you'll be starting off from Shadowprey Village, alliance come from Nijel's Point, either way you're just going to be making a large loop around the entire zone, perhaps stopping in at strategic places such as the valley of spears and thunderaxe fortress for extra ore.
Mining 175-250 / Truesilver / Mithril / Dark Iron
Now you're going to finally start mining some of the more valuable and possibly contested materials, this was about the skill level that I started running into horde/alliance on my mining runs.
Blasted Lands:
Blasted lands, this place is rather easy, just make huge circles about the zone and you should get almost everything.
Searing Gorge:
Searing gorge is, like blasted lands, somewhat easy to do, I'd recommend separating the Cauldron and the main section of the zone into two different runs to make it more time efficient, you'll also find alot of dark iron ore in this zone but that requires 230 skill so you may have to wait a bit to actually mine it.
Badlands:
This zone is another lovely place to mine, it's practically filled full of mining spots, the only problem is that quite a few of them will end up green/grey once you reach the higher skill levels. For maximum ore density try hitting the far right side of the map next to all the dragons and the ogre camp, camp cagg.
Western Plaguelands:
Just run circles through the ruins of andorhal if possible, you might find this place a bit hard to mine efficiently unless you're 60+ though.
Mining 250-300 / Thorium
Winterspring:
Most of the thorium you're going to be looking for in winterspring is located in the various caves and more isolated sections of the map such as the owl wing thicket. Heading even further south will result in your running into darkwhisper gorge, this has a number of thorium spots but it also contains a large amount of 61-62 elites.
Also I'd recommend heading over to Mazthoril as well, this place has some dragonkin elites but should be easy enough for anyone 60+, once you've cleared it you can also head north up to lake Kel'Theril before restarting your loop.
Blasted Lands, Searing Gorge:
Both of these zones have a rather small and quite rare spawn of thorium, not exactly recommended but still distinct possibilities for skill gain.
Un'goro Crater:
Un'goro is quite the nice mining area for anyone about 58-60 or higher, before that you risk getting too many add's as you run about searching for ore, otherwise rarely does anyone actually come here except to complete the quests and thus the ore is generally left alone.
Given it's naturally circular nature I'll leave it to you to run loops around the zone looking for thorium, make sure every once in a while to check out the center of the map as well, fire plume ridge, for more ore.
300-330 / Fel Iron
Starting from this point and onwards till 375 skill you'll be mining purely in outlands, for pure ease of skill gain I'd recommend you hit 70 first *then* head back and mine all the nodes required, obviously it can be done on the way from 60-70 but it's quite a bit harder.
Hellfire Penninsula:
Starting at the dark portal you'll be doing something most likely familiar to you if you've followed the guide up to this point, taking a path in what is essentially a huge circle around the zone. The only difference this time is that the zone is rather immense versus anything you've previously explored, that can make it a bit tricky but otherwise it's quite similar really.
One thing to note is that most of the mobs are at a maximum about 63-64 or so, thus anyone 67 or higher should have absolutely no problems running the entire zone for ore, the only other possbilities for trouble would be horde/alliance or running into enemy faction guards at either thrallmar or honor hold.
Finally, a flying mount will greatly enhance your mining speed, even the normal 60% speed one, simply because you can avoid everything and only mine exactly what you want without fear of adds, the epic flying mount simply enhances that effect.
Zangamarsh:
Personally I stayed in Hellfire Penninsula for my mining but Zangamarsh has a decent supply of ore as well, just run loops around the mountain edges grabbing everything in sight and perhaps making a few lines back and forth across the zone vertically for a few more veins.
330-355 / Fel Iron / Adamantine
Nagrand:
Nagrand is a rather nice zone for mining, holding a good amount of fel iron and adamantine ore perfect for gaining skill as well as being relatively open and lacking the previous zones somewhat annoying terrain that could inhibit your mining should it spawn in an inconvienient place.
I would start at the entrance to terrokar forest, essentially just as you enter nagrand really, and make my way north past the burning blade ruins and the ring of trials. Once you reach the mountains at the top north I'd turn left, strategically avoiding the horde town on my alliance characters, and then turn north up to the laughing skull ruins for a few more ore veins.
Finishing up there I'd then turn south and go all the way down past the forge camp: hate and fear, finally upon reaching oshu'gun i'd turn right and go past telaar/kil'sorrow fortress until I hit my starting point.
355-375 / Fel Iron / Adamantine
Nagrand continues to work at this point, rich adamantine nodes previously out of reach are now avaliable, but you could also hit up the higher level zones such as Shadowmoon Valley.
Personally I did shadowmoon valley simply because I wanted to finish some quests in the zone at the same time, it's quite large and rich in ore and also generally deserted for the most part except at a select few locations such as the blood elfs.
