Earthquakes in North Macedonia through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 6 on July 26, 1963 (0 km NE of Krušopek, North Macedonia), for which NOAA records 1,070 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 17 here, back to AD 57. NOAA records deaths in 3 of the events here, 1,100 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 5.1 on September 11, 2016 (Macedonia). NOAA’s record here begins in AD 57 with an earthquake (Durres). It grows thinner going back: 6 of the 17 significant earthquakes NOAA lists here are from 1927 on. NOAA lists one tsunami that began in or off North Macedonia.

• September 11, 2016Earthquake · M 5.1MacedoniaNOAA NCEI
• February 25, 1983Earthquake · M 4.7Macedonia: Skopje · 12 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• November 30, 1967Earthquake · M 6.76 km NW of Lukovo, North Macedonia · 18 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI
• July 26, 1963Earthquake · M 6.00 km NE of Krušopek, North Macedonia · 1,070 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• March 8, 1931Earthquake · M 6.73 km SW of Kuklis, North MacedoniaUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• March 7, 1931Earthquake · M 6.25 km NNE of Valandovo, North MacedoniaUSGS
• December 18, 1920TsunamiAlbanian CoastsNOAA NCEI
• February 18, 1911Earthquake · M 6.617 km NNW of Bilisht, AlbaniaUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• AD 346Earthquake · M 6.8 (est.)Durres (Dyrrachium)NOAA NCEI
• AD 57EarthquakeDurresNOAA NCEI

• An event counts for North Macedonia when it began inside its borders, or at sea within 100 km of its coast (so one can count for two neighbours), or further out, up to 300 km, where North Macedonia is the nearest country.
• 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.
• The map frames the box around North Macedonia, its neighbours’ quakes included, so its count runs higher than this page’s.
• 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