Tectonic plates are located all around Earth, forming the planet’s lithosphere and covering both continents and ocean floors. Their boundaries are mostly along features like mid-ocean ridges, ocean trenches, and fault zones, and many are hidden beneath the oceans.

Where they are

  • Under the continents: plates carry the landmasses you see on the surface.
  • Under the oceans: many plate boundaries run across the seafloor, especially along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and other mid-ocean ridges.
  • At plate edges: earthquakes and volcanoes are common where plates meet, slide past, or pull apart.

Major plates

The main tectonic plates include the Pacific, North American, South American, Eurasian, African, Antarctic, and Indo-Australian plates, along with several smaller ones such as the Nazca, Cocos, Caribbean, Philippine, Juan de Fuca, Scotia, Arabian, and Australian plates.

Simple picture

Think of Earth’s outer shell like a cracked eggshell: the cracks are the plate boundaries, and the pieces are the plates. Some pieces are huge and include both land and ocean, while others are smaller and sit mostly under the sea.

In one sentence

So, tectonic plates are spread across the entire globe, beneath continents and oceans alike, with their edges marking the main zones of geological activity.