It was established in 1933 when Journal of Physical Chemistry editors refused to publish theoretical works.

[2] The editors have been:[1] According to the Web of Science database, as to 15 March 2018, a total of 132,435 articles have been published in the Journal of Chemical Physics.

The number of articles published per year was about 180 in the 1930s and decreased to about 120 during second world war.

The publishing rate remained fairly stable at this level until about 1990, when it climbed up again, reaching a maximum of 2871 articles published in 2014.

As to 15 March 2018 and according to Web of Science, the ten most cited articles published in the Journal of Chemical Physics are: By the standards of chemical physics, these are huge numbers of citations, and all of these papers should be considered pivotal.