What the list is
USGS publishes a table of the 20 largest earthquakes in the world since 1900. The page dates that table 26 June 2019. Magnitudes and times below are the ones stored with this site’s copy of those rows. This page does not insert earthquakes that happened after the table date, and it does not re-rank the list. The homepage’s strongest event in the 2025–2026 snapshot is a different catalog window. It is not automatically number 21.
The twenty rows
| Earthquake | Mag | Time (UTC) | On this site |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 M9.5 Valdivia, Chile | 9.5 | 1960-05-22 19:11 UTC | Chile |
| 1964 M9.2 Great Alaska earthquake | 9.2 | 1964-03-28 03:36 UTC | Alaska-Aleutian |
| 2004 M9.1 Sumatra-Andaman | 9.1 | 2004-12-26 00:58 UTC | Sumatra-Andaman |
| 2011 M9.1 Tohoku, Japan | 9.1 | 2011-03-11 05:46 UTC | Japan Trench |
| 1952 M9.0 Kamchatka | 9.0 | 1952-11-04 16:58 UTC | Kamchatka-Kuril |
| 2010 M8.8 Maule, Chile | 8.8 | 2010-02-27 06:34 UTC | Chile |
| 1906 M8.8 Ecuador–Colombia | 8.8 | 1906-01-31 15:36 UTC | Peru and northern Andes |
| 1965 M8.7 Rat Islands, Aleutians | 8.7 | 1965-02-04 05:01 UTC | Alaska-Aleutian |
| 1950 M8.6 Assam–Tibet | 8.6 | 1950-08-15 14:09 UTC | No Pacific-margin page. This list entry is inland Asia. |
| 2012 M8.6 off northern Sumatra | 8.6 | 2012-04-11 08:39 UTC | Sumatra-Andaman |
| 2005 M8.6 Nias, Indonesia | 8.6 | 2005-03-28 16:10 UTC | Sumatra-Andaman |
| 1957 M8.6 Andreanof Islands, Aleutians | 8.6 | 1957-03-09 14:23 UTC | Alaska-Aleutian |
| 1946 M8.6 Unimak Island, Alaska | 8.6 | 1946-04-01 12:29 UTC | Alaska-Aleutian |
| 1938 M8.5 Banda Sea | 8.5 | 1938-02-01 19:04 UTC | No separate page. One Banda Sea epicenter is not a second Sunda essay. |
| 1922 M8.5 Atacama, Chile | 8.5 | 1922-11-11 04:33 UTC | Chile |
| 1963 M8.5 Kuril Islands | 8.5 | 1963-10-13 05:18 UTC | Kamchatka-Kuril |
| 1923 M8.4 Kamchatka | 8.4 | 1923-02-03 16:02 UTC | Kamchatka-Kuril |
| 2007 M8.4 southern Sumatra | 8.4 | 2007-09-12 11:10 UTC | Sumatra-Andaman |
| 2001 M8.4 Arequipa, Peru | 8.4 | 2001-06-23 20:33 UTC | Peru and northern Andes |
| 1933 M8.4 Sanriku, Japan | 8.4 | 1933-03-02 17:31 UTC | Japan Trench |
Two rows without a region essay
The 1950 M8.6 Assam–Tibet earthquake is inland Asia. It is on the USGS list and it is not a Pacific rim trench, so it has no Ring of Fire region page. The 1938 M8.5 Banda Sea earthquake is inside the broad Indonesia rectangle and is not given its own essay: one epicenter would only repeat the Sumatra page’s warning that the rectangle is wider than Sumatra. New Madrid is not on this list at all. Its 1811–1812 magnitudes are pre-instrumental estimates on a different USGS page.
What a row is not
A row is a published epicenter, magnitude, and time. It is not a fault trace, not a tsunami height, and not a forecast that a similar earthquake will happen again at that coordinate. Energy comparisons between two magnitudes on the list belong on the magnitude and energy tool, which applies the USGS whole-step rule and does not rank places.