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Nature Of Operations And Basis Of Presentation	12 Months Ended
	Dec. 31, 2012
Nature Of Operations And Basis Of Presentation [Abstract]
Nature Of Operations And Basis Of Presentation	1. Nature of Operations Vista Gold Corp. and its subsidiaries (collectively, “Vista,” the “Company,” the “Corporation,” “we,” “our” or “us”) operate in the gold mining industry. We are focused on the evaluation, acquisition, exploration and advancement of gold exploration and potential development projects, which may lead to gold production or value adding strategic transactions such as earn-in right agreements or leases to third parties, joint venture arrangements with other mining companies, or outright sales of assets for cash and/or other consideration.  As we do not currently produce gold in commercial quantities, since January 1, 2002, we are considered an Exploration Stage Enterprise as defined in the SEC Industry Guide 7. Our approach to acquisitions of gold projects has generally been to seek projects within political jurisdictions with well-established mining, land ownership and tax laws, which have adequate drilling and geological data to support the completion of a third-party review of the geological data and to complete an estimate of the gold mineralization. In addition, we look for opportunities to improve the value of our gold projects through exploration drilling and/or technical studies resulting in changes to the operating assumptions underlying previous engineering work. We are moving our more advanced projects through technical, engineering and feasibility studies so that production decisions can be made on those projects.

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- Definition

The entire disclosure for the nature of an entity's business, the major products or services it sells or provides and its principal markets, including the locations of those markets. If the entity operates in more than one business, the disclosure also indicates the relative importance of its operations in each business and the basis for the determination (for example, assets, revenues, or earnings).

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-Publisher FASB

-Name Accounting Standards Codification

-Topic 275

-SubTopic 10

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-LegacyDoc This reference is SUPERSEDED by the Accounting Standards Codification effective for interim and annual periods ending after September 15, 2009. This reference is included to help users transition from the previous accounting hierarchy and will be removed from future versions of this taxonomy.

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