Historical earthquakes is a list of significant earthquakes known to have occurred prior to the early 20th century.
As the events listed here occurred before routine instrumental recordings — later followed by discoveries of Earth's tectonic plates,[1] seismotomography imaging technique,[2] observations using space satellites from outer space,[3] artificial intelligence (AI)-based earthquake warning systems[4] — they rely mainly on the analysis of written sources, observations of shaking objects and/or animal behavior during earthquakes,[5] religious/traditional beliefs about earthquakes (e.g. "God's punishment", "God's rage", "Earth never quiet", "Earth's rage" or "Mother Nature's rage").
[6] There is often significant uncertainty and hypothesis in locations and magnitudes — sometimes dates for each earthquakes.
The number of fatalities is also often highly uncertain and hypothetical, particularly for the older events.
When no magnitude was available, the maximum intensity, written as a Roman numeral from I to XII, is given.