This is a list of historical earthquakes.
Historical earthquakes are significant earthquakes that occurred before the early 20th century. These events are primarily documented through written sources, observations of shaking objects or animal behavior, religious beliefs (e.g., "God's punishment") or palaeoseismological techniques. Due to the lack of instrumental recordings, there is often significant uncertainty in the locations, magnitudes, and dates of these earthquakes. The number of fatalities is also often uncertain, especially for older events.
Unless otherwise noted, times are local time and magnitudes use the moment magnitude scale ().