List of historical earthquakes

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, they rely mainly on the analysis of written sources, observations of shaking objects or animal behavior during earthquakes, religious/traditional beliefs about earthquakes (e.g. "God's punishment"). or the use of palaeoseismological techniques. There is often significant uncertainty in locations and magnitudes, and sometimes dates for each earthquakes. The number of fatalities is also often highly uncertain, particularly for the older events.