Jade vs jadeite vs nephrite

Jade is the family name, and jadeite and nephrite are the two stones in the family. Jadeite is real jade, nephrite is real jade, and they are two different minerals. So “jade vs jadeite” is not a real contest: when people draw that line they almost always mean nephrite vs jadeite, the greasy-lustered jade of ancient China against the glassier, more vivid jade that comes mainly from Myanmar.

GIA uses jade as a generic term for both materials, and adds that under certain conditions green omphacite is now included as well.

Nephrite jade vs jadeite, side by side

	Jadeite	Nephrite
Mineral group	Pyroxene	Amphibole (tremolite-actinolite series)
Chemistry	Sodium aluminum silicate, NaAlSi₂O₆	Calcium magnesium iron silicate, Ca₂(Mg,Fe)₅Si₈O₂₂(OH)₂
Mohs hardness	6.5 to 7	6 to 6.5
Specific gravity	About 3.34	About 2.95
Refractive index	1.666 to 1.680	1.606 to 1.632
Toughness (GIA’s comparative figure)	120,000	225,000
Luster	Glassier; takes a higher polish	Soft, greasy to waxy
Under magnification	Granular; polished surface often shows faint “orange peel” dimpling	Fibers too fine to resolve
Typical colors	Many greens including vivid emerald green, yellow, reddish orange, white, gray, black, brown, lavender	Light to dark green, yellow, brown, black, gray, white; more muted
Translucency	Prized: the more translucent the better	Not the goal: an oily, dense look is preferred
Main sources	Northern Myanmar; also Guatemala, Japan, Russia	China, Russia, South Korea, Canada, United States, New Zealand
Use in China	Since the late 1700s	Carved for more than 3,000 years
Auction high cited below	US$27.44 million (bead necklace, 2014)	US$15.7 million (imperial seal, 2010)

The hardness, specific gravity and refractive index values are GIA’s reference figures. The toughness numbers come from GIA’s article on gem durability, which gives them without a unit, so read them only as a comparison: nephrite resists breaking better than jadeite, and both do far better than most gems. Jade hardness explains the difference between hardness and toughness.

Is jadeite the same as jade? Why two stones share one name

All jadeite is jade, but not all jade is jadeite. The shared name is an accident of history.

The word comes from the Spanish piedra de ijada, “stone of the pain in the side”. According to GIA’s history of jade, early Spanish explorers in the Americas saw native people hold pieces of the stone to their sides in the belief that it relieved aches. That is a historical belief, not a medical effect.

For centuries afterward all jade was treated as one stone. In 1863 the French mineralogist Alexis Damour analyzed a Burmese jade and a Chinese jade carving and found they were different minerals. The harder Burmese material was named jadeite, as Gem-A recounts, and the older word stayed in use for both.

The two do have things in common. Both are metamorphic rocks made of tiny interlocking crystals, and that structure makes both exceptionally tough. Jadeite forms at higher pressure than nephrite, so the two usually occur in separate deposits.

The difference between jadeite and nephrite you can see and feel

None of these observations is proof, but together they point one way or the other.

Luster. Nephrite has a soft, greasy to waxy luster. Jadeite is glassier, and because it is slightly harder it usually takes a higher polish.

Color. The vivid emerald green of imperial jade is caused by chromium and occurs only in jadeite. Nephrite’s greens are colored by iron and are darker and more muted, the shade usually called spinach green. Lavender appears in GIA’s list of jadeite colors and not in its list for nephrite.

Heft. Jadeite is noticeably denser, so a jadeite piece feels heavier than a nephrite piece of the same size.

Surface. Under a loupe, polished jadeite often shows a faint dimpled “orange peel” texture, which Gem-A treats as an identification feature, and its granular structure can sometimes be seen. Nephrite’s fibers are too fine to make out even under magnification.

Light and sound. GIA notes that jadeite scatters light so strongly that a white piece with a small green spot can look green all over when lit from behind, and that nephrite rings musically when struck. The imperial Chinese court had jade chimes tuned to specific notes.

How each jade is judged

GIA ranks jadeite’s value factors as color, then transparency, then texture. The best jadeite is semitransparent, and the least desirable is completely opaque or has cloudy patches.

Nephrite turns part of that upside down. Chinese dealers look for fineness of texture, an oily luster and even color, and translucency is not the goal. Very translucent nephrite, typical of material from Qinghai, has traditionally been marked down.

“Hard jade” and “soft jade”

In Chinese, jadeite is feicui (翡翠) and is also called yingyu (硬玉), “hard jade”. Nephrite is commonly called Hetian yu (和田玉), “Hetian jade”, or ruanyu (软玉), “soft jade”. The second name is misleading. Nephrite is only about half a step below jadeite on the Mohs scale, and it is the tougher of the two. Gem-A calls fibrous nephrite the toughest gem, which is why it suits fine, undercut carving.

Because the Chinese word yu covers both stones, asking a Chinese dealer whether a piece is jade tells you little. Asking whether it is feicui or Hetian yu gets a more useful answer.

Nephrite came first, jadeite came late

Nephrite is the older jade. Stone Age workers in China and elsewhere made nephrite tools, weapons and ritual objects, and according to GIA, nephrite carving has been a continuous artistic tradition in China for more than 3,000 years.

Jadeite is a latecomer. GIA dates the first Burmese jadeite reaching China to the late 1700s. A Gems & Gemology history of Burmese jade puts the opening of the source at 1784, under the Qianlong emperor, with a regular trade route by 1798. In the Chinese trade, the late Qing court, and the Empress Dowager Cixi’s taste for bright green jadeite in particular, is credited with lifting jadeite from an imported curiosity to a stone ranked alongside nephrite. The mines of northern Myanmar are still the principal source of top-grade jadeite, as Burmese jade explains.

Price, treatment and origin

Jadeite has the higher ceiling. GIA says it commands some of the highest prices among gems, and the record for jade jewelry is the Hutton-Mdivani jadeite bead necklace, sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in April 2014 for US$27.44 million according to Guinness World Records. Fine nephrite can be very valuable as well: Gem-A records a green nephrite seal of the Qianlong emperor selling for US$15.7 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in 2010. Those are single results at the very top. They say nothing about what an ordinary piece of either stone is worth.

Two practical differences matter more to most buyers:

• Treatment. Jadeite is treated far more often, by bleaching, polymer impregnation and dyeing. Nephrite occurs more abundantly and, according to the International Gem Society, is rarely dyed.
• Origin. With nephrite, origin drives much of the price and cannot be read from the stone. On Chinese certificates today, “Hetian jade” is a mineral name and not a place name, so nephrite from Xinjiang, Qinghai, Russia or Korea is all certified under it. Dealers who handle both say nephrite is the harder stone for a newcomer to judge: two pieces that look alike can differ widely in price, whereas jadeite’s color and translucency show at a glance. More in nephrite jade.

How to find out which one you have

At home you can only gather hints: the weight in the hand, greasy against glassy luster, vivid against muted color, the orange peel surface under a loupe. These narrow things down. They do not tell you whether the stone is jade at all or whether it has been treated.

A gemological laboratory separates the two cleanly, because their specific gravity and refractive index do not overlap. The same report will say whether the piece shows signs of treatment, which matters a great deal to its value. For the checks worth doing before you pay for a report, start with how to tell if jade is real.