Earthquakes rank among the most frequent and devastating natural disasters globally, posing a significant challenge to human survival and development. Seismic hazards exhibit the following salient features:

• Immense Destructive Power. Earthquakes cause damage to mountains, ground surfaces, and their attachments (e.g., vegetation, buildings), often triggering secondary disasters such as tsunamis, fires, landslides, and floods. These events result in massive casualties, property losses, and may introduce new hazards to modern socio-economic systems, including communication failures and computer system accidents.

• Instantaneity and Unpredictability. Earthquakes occur instantaneously, with seismic effects lasting from mere seconds to a maximum of two to three minutes—sufficient to cause catastrophic ground rupture and structural collapse. Effective defensive measures cannot be organized within such short timeframes. Current and foreseeable technological capabilities remain insufficient to predict earthquake occurrences.

• Frequent Occurrence. Approximately five million earthquakes occur annually worldwide, translating to tens of thousands daily. Most are imperceptible due to their low magnitude or remote locations. Only about a dozen or two dozen cause severe harm to humans, with merely one or two resulting in exceptionally devastating disasters.

  The socio-economic impacts of earthquakes are multifaceted. At the macro level, sudden natural disasters like earthquakes severely damage infrastructure and buildings in affected areas, potentially causing massive casualties and negatively impacting local economic development. Conversely, such destruction may provide opportunities for urban architectural renewal and new development pathways, resolving the conflict between land redevelopment and durable structures in urban growth, while also injecting new momentum into local economies. At the micro level, the extensive damage imposes substantial fiscal pressure on local governments for short-term disaster relief and reconstruction, potentially leading to intensified tax collection and administration on local enterprises to secure revenue—directly affecting business operations.

  CnOpenData’s China Earthquake Information Dataset encompasses essential earthquake parameters (year, origin time(发震时刻), latitude(纬度), longitude(经度), depth(深度), magnitude(震级), etc.), surrounding cities, historical seismic records, seismic phase records(震相记录), and distribution data of seismographic networks(测震台网). This dataset comprehensively integrates earthquake-related information aggregated by networks such as the China Earthquake Networks Center, providing high-quality data resources for relevant research.

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Time Coverage

Details per sub-table (updatable as needed)

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Data Scale

Details per sub-table

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Field Display

中国历史地震目录信息表字段

中国地震台网地震详细信息表字段

中国地震震相信息表字段

中国测震台网地域分布信息表字段

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Sample Data

Historical Earthquake Catalog of China (Pre-1969)

Catalog of M≥5 Earthquakes in China Throughout History

Basic Earthquake Information Table - China Earthquake Networks Center

Regional Distribution of China Seismographic Network Stations

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References

• Yu, Y., Gong, Y., Chen, B., et al. (2022). Household Asset Allocation Under Dual Constraints of Property and Life Risks: Evidence from Earthquake Risk. China Industrial Economics, 5.

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Data Update Frequency

Annual updates