Largest Earthquakes in the World Since 1900

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	Location	Date UTC	Magnitude	Lat.	Long.	Reference
1.	Chile	1960 05 22	9.5	-38.29	-73.05	Kanamori, 1977
2.	Prince William Sound, Alaska	1964 03 28	9.2	61.02	-147.65	Kanamori, 1977
3.	Off the West Coast of Northern Sumatra	2004 12 26	9.1	3.30	95.78	Park et al., 2005
4.	Near the East Coast of Honshu, Japan	2011 03 11	9.0	38.322	142.369	PDE
5.	Kamchatka	1952 11 04	9.0	52.76	160.06	Kanamori, 1977
6.	Offshore Maule, Chile	2010 02 27	8.8	-35.846	-72.719	PDE
7.	Off the Coast of Ecuador	1906 01 31	8.8	1.0	-81.5	Kanamori, 1977
8.	Rat Islands, Alaska	1965 02 04	8.7	51.21	178.50	Kanamori, 1977
9.	Northern Sumatra, Indonesia	2005 03 28	8.6	2.08	97.01	PDE
10.	Assam - Tibet	1950 08 15	8.6	28.5	96.5	Kanamori, 1977
11.	Andreanof Islands, Alaska	1957 03 09	8.6	51.56	-175.39	Johnson et al., 1994
12.	Southern Sumatra, Indonesia	2007 09 12	8.5	-4.438	101.367	PDE
13.	Banda Sea, Indonesia	1938 02 01	8.5	-5.05	131.62	Okal and Reymond, 2003
14.	Kamchatka	1923 02 03	8.5	54.0	161.0	Kanamori, 1988
15.	Chile-Argentina Border	1922 11 11	8.5	-28.55	-70.50	Kanamori, 1977
16.	Kuril Islands	1963 10 13	8.5	44.9	149.6	Kanamori, 1977
Updated 2011 March 15

References
Johnson, J.M., Y. Tanioka, L.J. Ruff, K. Sataki, H. Kanamori, and L.R. Sykes, 1994, The 1957 great Aleutian earthquake, Pure and Appl. Geophys., 142, 3-28.
Kanamori, H., 1977, The energy release of great earthquakes, J. Geophys. Res. 82, 2981-2987.
Kanamori, H., 1988, Importance of historical seismograms for geophysical research, in Lee, W.H.K., Meyers, H., and Shimazaki, K., eds., Historical Seismograms and Earthquakes of the World: San Diego, Academic Press, p. 16-33.
Okal, E.A., and D. Reymond, The mechanism of great Banda Sea earthquake of 01 February 1983, 2003, Applying the method of Preliminary Determination of Focal Mechanism to a historical event, Earth Planet. Sci. Letts., 216, 1-15.
Park, J., T.-R. A. Song, J. Tromp, E. Okal, S. Stein, G. Roult, E. Clevede, G. Laske, H. Kanamori, P. Davis, J. Berger, C. Braitenberg, M. Van Camp, X. Lei, H. Sun, H. Xu, S. Rossat, 2005, Earth's free oscillations excited by the 26 December 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake, Science, 308, 1139-1144.
PDE (Preliminary Determination of Earthquakes) Monthly Listing, U.S. Geological Suvery, Golden, CO.
 
Revisions
The Andreanof Islands, Alaska earthquake of 1957 03 09, previously listed with a magnitude o f 9.1, has had its magnitude reviewed, and it was updated to 8.6.
The Ningxia-Gansu, China earthquake of 1920 12 16, previously listed with a magnitude of 8.6, has had its magnitude reviewed, and it was updated to 7.8.
The Tonga earthquake of 1917 06 26, previously listed with a magnitude of 8.5, has had its magnitude reviewed, and it was updated to 8.4.
Source : http://earthquake.usgs.gov