The 1960 Valdivia earthquake in Chile, magnitude 9.5, is the strongest ever recorded; this list has 14 entries because five earthquakes tie at magnitude 8.6.
The strongest earthquake ever recorded is the 1960 Valdivia Earthquake - Chile, at moment magnitude 9.5. The 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake is second at 9.2, and the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman and 2011 Tohoku earthquakes tie for third at 9.1. The ranking uses USGS moment magnitudes for instrumentally recorded earthquakes since 1900, from the USGS largest-earthquakes table and its 2025 update.
Earthquakes of magnitude 8.5 and above are rare. Because the moment magnitude scale is logarithmic, a magnitude 9.5 earthquake releases roughly three times the energy of a 9.2 and about a thousand times that of a 7.5. This list ranks the strongest earthquakes recorded by instruments since 1900, using the moment magnitudes published by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Most occurred on subduction zones around the Pacific and Indian oceans; two exceptions are the 1950 Assam-Tibet earthquake (a continental collision zone) and the 2012 Indian Ocean earthquake (strike-slip faulting inside an oceanic plate).
The strongest earthquake ever recorded by instruments. The megathrust rupture off south-central Chile generated a tsunami that crossed the Pacific and caused deaths as far away as Hawaii and Japan.
The largest earthquake recorded in the United States and in North America, striking on Good Friday (27 March local time). The earthquake and the tsunamis it generated caused deaths in Alaska, Oregon and California.
Tied at Mw 9.1 with the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and listed first because it is older. It triggered the Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed more than 200,000 people in over a dozen countries.
The Great East Japan Earthquake generated a tsunami that overwhelmed coastal defences, killed more than 15,000 people and caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.
The first earthquake recorded at magnitude 9. Its tsunami destroyed much of the town of Severo-Kurilsk in the Kuril Islands, with at least 2,336 deaths, and reached Hawaii.
The oldest of three Mw 8.8 earthquakes, so it is listed first among them. Its tsunami struck the Pacific coast of Ecuador and Colombia, killing an estimated 500 to 1,500 people, and was recorded as far away as Hawaii.
A megathrust earthquake off central Chile that, with its tsunami, killed more than 500 people. It was Chile's largest earthquake since the 1960 Valdivia event.
The largest earthquake worldwide since 2011, striking at 23:24 UTC on 29 July 2025 (30 July local time) about 45 km from the 1952 epicentre. It was preceded by a magnitude 7.4 foreshock ten days earlier and triggered Pacific-wide tsunami warnings.
A great earthquake in Alaska's western Aleutians (3 February local time) that ruptured roughly 600 km of the plate boundary; damage was low because the region is remote and sparsely populated.
One of five earthquakes tied at Mw 8.6. Its tsunami destroyed the Scotch Cap Lighthouse on Unimak Island, killing all five keepers, and devastated Hilo, Hawaii.
The largest earthquake on record not on a subduction zone, centred in the eastern Himalayas. It caused massive landslides that dammed rivers; Wikipedia's article gives about 4,800 deaths.
Its aftershock zone, about 1,200 km long, is the longest observed for any historic Aleutian arc earthquake, according to the USGS.
Struck three months after the 2004 earthquake, just to its south. It killed more than 1,300 people, about 1,000 of them on the island of Nias.
The largest strike-slip earthquake ever recorded, occurring within the oceanic plate rather than on a subduction zone. It is the most recent of the five Mw 8.6 earthquakes.
| # | Name | Location | Date (UTC) | Magnitude (Mw) | Tectonic setting |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1960 Valdivia Earthquake - Chile | Bio-Bio / Valdivia, Chile | 1960-05-22 | 9.5 | Subduction zone |
| 2 | 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake - USA | Prince William Sound, Alaska, USA | 1964-03-28 | 9.2 | Subduction zone |
| 3 | 2004 Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake - Indonesia | Off west coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia | 2004-12-26 | 9.1 | Subduction zone |
| 4 | 2011 Tohoku Earthquake - Japan | Off Pacific coast of Tohoku, Japan | 2011-03-11 | 9.1 | Subduction zone |
| 5 | 1952 Kamchatka Earthquake - Russia | Kamchatka, Russia | 1952-11-04 | 9 | Subduction zone |
| 6 | 1906 Ecuador-Colombia Earthquake | Off coast of Esmeraldas, Ecuador | 1906-01-31 | 8.8 | Subduction zone |
| 7 | 2010 Maule Earthquake - Chile | Offshore Maule / Bio-Bio, Chile | 2010-02-27 | 8.8 | Subduction zone |
| 8 | 2025 Kamchatka Earthquake - Russia | Off east coast of Kamchatka, Russia | 2025-07-29 | 8.8 | Subduction zone |
| 9 | 1965 Rat Islands Earthquake - Alaska, USA | Rat Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska, USA | 1965-02-04 | 8.7 | Subduction zone |
| 10 | 1946 Aleutian Islands (Unimak) Earthquake - Alaska, USA | Unimak Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska, USA | 1946-04-01 | 8.6 | Subduction zone |
| 11 | 1950 Assam-Tibet Earthquake - India/China | Arunachal Pradesh, India / Tibet, China | 1950-08-15 | 8.6 | Continental collision zone |
| 12 | 1957 Andreanof Islands Earthquake - Alaska, USA | Andreanof Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska, USA | 1957-03-09 | 8.6 | Subduction zone |
| 13 | 2005 Nias Earthquake - Indonesia | Northern Sumatra, Indonesia | 2005-03-28 | 8.6 | Subduction zone |
| 14 | 2012 Indian Ocean Earthquake - Indonesia | Off west coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia | 2012-04-11 | 8.6 | Strike-slip, within oceanic plate |
Ranked by moment magnitude (Mw) as published by the USGS: the '20 Largest Earthquakes in the World Since 1900' table (dated 26 June 2019) for events through 2012, and the USGS '10 Largest Earthquakes Ever Recorded (Updated 2025)' graphic for the 29 July 2025 Kamchatka earthquake. Magnitudes are USGS values rounded to one decimal; other catalogues give slightly different values for some events (Wikipedia, for example, lists the 1950 Assam-Tibet earthquake at 8.7). Equal magnitudes are ties, listed oldest first by UTC date. Because five earthquakes share Mw 8.6, the list keeps all of them and has 14 entries rather than 10. Dates are UTC, as in the USGS table, so some differ by a day from local dates. Only instrumentally recorded earthquakes (1900 onward) are included.
The 22 May 1960 Valdivia earthquake in Chile, at moment magnitude 9.5 according to the USGS. The next largest is the 1964 Alaska earthquake at 9.2.
Each whole-number step on the moment magnitude scale is about 32 times more energy, so two steps (for example 7.0 to 9.0) is about 1,000 times. The 0.3 gap between the 9.5 Chile and 9.2 Alaska earthquakes is roughly a factor of three in energy.
Five earthquakes are tied at magnitude 8.6 in the USGS catalogue. Rather than drop four of them arbitrarily, all tied entries are kept and ordered by date.
Before about 1900 there were no seismographs able to measure magnitude, so the size of older earthquakes is estimated from damage reports and geological evidence. Those estimates are not comparable with instrumental magnitudes, so they are excluded.
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