Back in time
Volcanic eruptions in history
The eruptions of the Smithsonian’s Volcanoes of the World, most of them in the last 12,000 years, with NOAA’s record of the eruptions that killed people, did damage or set off a tsunami.
Open the live mapWhat you see
- Eruptions as natural-hazard marks at the volcano, all at one size: History sizes hazards by magnitude, which eruptions don’t carry.
- Click one for its Volcanic Explosivity Index (known for three in four), how it was dated, and the volcano’s Wikipedia article.
- Opened from this page, the map plays 1800 to today.
Where the data comes from
- Smithsonian GVPThe Global Volcanism Program’s Volcanoes of the World, version 5.3: Holocene eruptions with their dates, VEI and how they were dated.
- NOAA NCEIThe Significant Volcanic Eruptions Database: eruptions that killed, did about $1 million of damage, reached VEI 6, or came with a tsunami or a major earthquake.
The Global Volcanism Program and NOAA revise their records; TAKIP takes them when the sets are imported again.
Good to know
- Before written records, eruptions are dated by radiocarbon, tephra layers or lake varves, some only to the century; one in five is from before 1 CE.
- Where NOAA and the Smithsonian record the same eruption (about 480), it is one event.
- Japan and Indonesia hold nearly three in ten of the eruptions.
- The Wikipedia article is usually the volcano’s, not the eruption’s. The Smithsonian’s terms allow non-commercial use only.
The first recorded here in each century
- Eruption of Arhab, Harra of500 · Volcanic eruption
- Eruption of Tatun Volcanic Group640s · Volcanic eruption
- Eruption of Witori710 · Volcanic eruption
- Eruption of Kozushima2 Aug 838 · Volcanic eruption
- Eruption of Towada17 Aug 915 · Volcanic eruption
- Eruption of Harrat Lunayyir1000 · Volcanic eruption
- Eruption of Uinkaret Field11th century · Volcanic eruption
- Eruption of Hayes12th century · Volcanic eruption
- Eruption of Ischia1302 · Volcanic eruption
- Eruption of Nasudake5 Mar 1410 · Volcanic eruption
- Eruption of Katla1500 · Volcanic eruption
- Eruption of Alney-Chashakondzha1600 · Volcanic eruption
- Eruption of Glacier Peak17th century · Volcanic eruption
- Eruption of Kyejo1800 · Volcanic eruption
- Eruption of Bora-Bericha-Tullu Moye1900 · Volcanic eruption
- Eruption of Miyakejima27 Jun 2000 · Volcanic eruption
Goes well with
Earthquakes in historyAbout 13,800 earthquakes on one map: NOAA’s significant quakes from around 2150 BCE, Europe’s from 1000 to 1899 from EPICA, and USGS quakes since 2026.
Tsunamis in historyNOAA’s record of more than 2,300 tsunamis, from Thera’s around 1610 BCE to today, on one map, with the deaths and the highest water where measured.
Natural disasters since 1960About 9,900 floods, storms, earthquakes, landslides, droughts and heat and cold waves from 1960 to 2018 on one map, from the Geocoded Disasters dataset.