Earthquakes near Shijiazhuang through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: an estimated magnitude 7.3 on January 9, 1038 (Shaanxi Province: Dingxiang, Xinxian), for which NOAA records 32,300 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 15 here, back to AD 512. NOAA records deaths in 8 of the events here, 59,383 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 5.7 on December 2, 1967 (Hebei Province: Shulu). NOAA’s record here begins on May 21, 512 with an earthquake (Shaanxi Province: Yingxian). It grows thinner going back: 8 of the 15 significant earthquakes NOAA lists here are from 1927 on.

• December 2, 1967Earthquake · M 5.7Hebei Province: ShuluNOAA NCEI
• June 12, 1830Earthquake · M 7.5 (est.)Hebei Province · 7,477 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• January 9, 1038Earthquake · M 7.3 (est.)Shaanxi Province: Dingxiang, Xinxian · 32,300 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• May 21, 512Earthquake · M 7.5 (est.)Shaanxi Province: Yingxian · 5,130 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Shijiazhuang 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