Earthquakes near Dingxi through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 7.9 on December 16, 1920 (125 km E of Baiyin, China), for which NOAA records 235,502 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 14 here, back to 194 BCE. NOAA records deaths in 6 of the events here, 333,071 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 5.2 on September 26, 2025 (18 km NW of Hualin, China). NOAA’s record here begins in 194 BCE with an earthquake (Gansu Province: Lintao).

• September 26, 2025Earthquake · M 5.218 km NW of Hualin, ChinaUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• December 16, 1920Earthquake · M 7.9125 km E of Baiyin, China · 235,502 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• July 21, 1654Earthquake · M 8.0 (est.)Gansu Province: Tianshui · 10,400 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• 194 BCEEarthquake · M 6.5 (est.)Gansu Province: LintaoNOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Dingxi when it began within 100 km of its centre, or 200 km for an earthquake of magnitude 7 or more. Damage can reach further.
• USGS counts here start at magnitude 6: the catalogue’s smaller quakes thin out going back, where few instruments listened.
• NOAA lists significant events only: earthquakes that killed, did about $1 million of damage, reached magnitude 7.5 or intensity X, or raised a tsunami, and eruptions and tsunamis by like measures. Magnitudes before 1900 are its estimates from written accounts.
• Deaths are NOAA’s total for each event, wherever people died, its tsunami and fires included. A tsunami counts the dead its runup records give for this place: NOAA’s total for a tsunami includes its source quake’s.
• A tsunami from elsewhere counts where one of its runups killed or rose a metre or more.
• Counted to October 19, 2026, as is the map. The last 30 days ask USGS again.

How the layers work, where their data comes from and what they can’t tell you: Earthquakes, live, The world through history