{"chart":{"slug":"earthquakes-recorded-per-year","title":"How many earthquakes are recorded worldwide each year?","takeaway":"Seismographs recorded 8,556 earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or more around the world in 2025, 2.9 times the 2,987 of 1973, when the U.S. Geological Survey's modern catalog begins. Much of that rise comes from more and better sensors catching smaller quakes, not from more earthquakes: the count of magnitude 6 or more stayed between about 80 and 210 a year from 1973 to 2025.","topic":"Earthquakes","chart_type":"line","ranking":false,"x_label":"Year","y_label":"Earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or more","unit":null,"points_count":53,"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":"2026-10-17T18:50:40.906Z","url":"https://chart.ly/charts/earthquakes-recorded-per-year","api_url":"https://chart.ly/api/v1/charts/earthquakes-recorded-per-year","csv_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/earthquakes-recorded-per-year/data.csv","image_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/earthquakes-recorded-per-year/image.png","embed_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/earthquakes-recorded-per-year/embed","credit":"U.S. Geological Survey, ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog (ComCat), via Chartly (https://chart.ly/charts/earthquakes-recorded-per-year)","credit_html":"U.S. Geological Survey, ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog (ComCat), via \u003ca href=\"https://chart.ly/charts/earthquakes-recorded-per-year\"\u003eChartly\u003c/a\u003e","average_label":null,"zero_axis":true,"data":[{"label":"1973","value":2987},{"label":"1974","value":3059},{"label":"1975","value":3313},{"label":"1976","value":3596},{"label":"1977","value":3580},{"label":"1978","value":3307},{"label":"1979","value":3288},{"label":"1980","value":3485},{"label":"1981","value":3261},{"label":"1982","value":3539},{"label":"1983","value":4093},{"label":"1984","value":4083},{"label":"1985","value":4549},{"label":"1986","value":4505},{"label":"1987","value":3986},{"label":"1988","value":3983},{"label":"1989","value":3992},{"label":"1990","value":4418},{"label":"1991","value":4089},{"label":"1992","value":4388},{"label":"1993","value":4188},{"label":"1994","value":4198},{"label":"1995","value":4694},{"label":"1996","value":4671},{"label":"1997","value":4588},{"label":"1998","value":3801},{"label":"1999","value":4067},{"label":"2000","value":5010},{"label":"2001","value":4680},{"label":"2002","value":4963},{"label":"2003","value":5135},{"label":"2004","value":6183},{"label":"2005","value":7878},{"label":"2006","value":7075},{"label":"2007","value":7274},{"label":"2008","value":6307},{"label":"2009","value":6053},{"label":"2010","value":7214},{"label":"2011","value":9584},{"label":"2012","value":7188},{"label":"2013","value":7209},{"label":"2014","value":8333},{"label":"2015","value":7153},{"label":"2016","value":7438},{"label":"2017","value":6371},{"label":"2018","value":7509},{"label":"2019","value":7211},{"label":"2020","value":6510},{"label":"2021","value":8959},{"label":"2022","value":7765},{"label":"2023","value":7643},{"label":"2024","value":6397},{"label":"2025","value":8556}],"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/earthquakes-recorded-per-year)"}