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Salt production, one of humanity's oldest industries, historically relied on two main methods: evaporating seawater in shallow coastal pans under the sun, and mining rock salt deposits left by ancient seas that once covered inland regions. Coastal evaporation, still practiced in places with reliable sunshine and low rainfall, requires large flat areas and patience, as the process can take weeks. Rock salt mining, by contrast, operates year-round regardless of weather, extracting deposits sometimes hundreds of metres underground. Modern industrial salt production has largely shifted toward vacuum evaporation, a faster technique using controlled heating that produces the fine, uniform crystals preferred for table salt. Traditional sun-dried sea salt, however, retains a devoted following among chefs who value its trace minerals and irregular crystal texture, even though it costs considerably more to produce.