Earthquakes near Marāgheh through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: an earthquake on November 18, 1727 (Tabriz), for which NOAA records 77,000 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 23 here, back to AD 858. NOAA records deaths in 12 of the events here, 301,319 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 5.8 on July 23, 1981 (Urumiyeh). NOAA’s record here begins on April 19, 858 with an earthquake (Tabriz).

• July 23, 1981Earthquake · M 5.8Urumiyeh · 10 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• January 8, 1780Earthquake · M 7.7 (est.)Tabriz · 50,000 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• November 18, 1727EarthquakeTabriz · 77,000 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• April 26, 1721Earthquake · M 7.7 (est.)Tabriz · 40,000 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• April 19, 858EarthquakeTabrizNOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Marāgheh 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