{"chart":{"slug":"biggest-earthquakes-since-1900","title":"What are the biggest earthquakes since 1900?","takeaway":"The strongest earthquake ever recorded struck Chile in 1960 at magnitude 9.5. Alaska's 1964 quake (9.2) and the 2004 Sumatra and 2011 Japan quakes (9.1 each) come next; 17 earthquakes have reached magnitude 8.5 or more since 1900, most around the Pacific. Magnitude is a logarithmic scale, so a 9.5 releases about 30 times the energy of an 8.5, far more than the bars suggest.","topic":"Earthquakes","chart_type":"bar","ranking":true,"x_label":"Year and place","y_label":"Magnitude","unit":null,"points_count":17,"source":{"name":"U.S. Geological Survey, ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog (ComCat)","url":"https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/search/"},"license":{"name":"Public domain (U.S. government work); source U.S. Geological Survey","url":"https://www.usgs.gov/information-policies-and-instructions/copyrights-and-credits"},"data_as_of":"2025-12-31","updated_at":"2026-09-25T16:17:32.221Z","url":"https://chart.ly/charts/biggest-earthquakes-since-1900","api_url":"https://chart.ly/api/v1/charts/biggest-earthquakes-since-1900","csv_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/biggest-earthquakes-since-1900/data.csv","image_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/biggest-earthquakes-since-1900/image.png","embed_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/biggest-earthquakes-since-1900/embed","credit":"U.S. Geological Survey, ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog (ComCat), via Chartly (https://chart.ly/charts/biggest-earthquakes-since-1900)","credit_html":"U.S. Geological Survey, ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog (ComCat), via \u003ca href=\"https://chart.ly/charts/biggest-earthquakes-since-1900\"\u003eChartly\u003c/a\u003e","average_label":null,"zero_axis":true,"data":[{"label":"1960: Great Chilean (Valdivia)","value":9.5},{"label":"1964: Prince William Sound, Alaska","value":9.2},{"label":"2004: Sumatra - Andaman Islands","value":9.1},{"label":"2011: Great Tohoku, Japan","value":9.1},{"label":"1952: near Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia","value":9},{"label":"2025: Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia","value":8.8},{"label":"1906: Ecuador-Colombia","value":8.8},{"label":"2010: Maule, Chile","value":8.8},{"label":"1965: Western Aleutian Islands (Hawadax/Rat Islands)","value":8.7},{"label":"1946: Unimak Island, Alaska","value":8.6},{"label":"1950: Assam-Tibet","value":8.6},{"label":"2012: Wharton Basin","value":8.6},{"label":"2005: near Singkil, Indonesia","value":8.6},{"label":"1957: Atka, Alaska","value":8.6},{"label":"1922: near Vallenar, Chile","value":8.5},{"label":"1938: Banda Sea","value":8.5},{"label":"1963: Kuril Islands","value":8.5}],"annotations":[]},"docs":"https://chart.ly/developers","terms":"Free to use with credit: wherever you show or quote a chart's data, name Chartly with a link to that chart's url (each chart's credit line does both) and credit its source as its license asks.","credit":"U.S. Geological Survey, ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog (ComCat), via Chartly (https://chart.ly/charts/biggest-earthquakes-since-1900)"}