Most earthquakes occur along tectonic plate boundaries, especially around the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where plates collide, slide past, or sink beneath one another.

Main earthquake zones

  • Pacific Ring of Fire : This giant horseshoe-shaped belt around the edges of the Pacific Ocean produces about 80% of the world’s largest earthquakes, affecting regions like Chile, Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Alaska, and the US West Coast.
  • Alpide Belt : The second‑most active belt runs from Indonesia through the Himalayas, across Turkey and the Mediterranean into the Atlantic, generating around 17% of global earthquakes.
  • Mid‑Atlantic Ridge : A long underwater ridge in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean where plates move apart, causing frequent but usually smaller, deep‑ocean quakes.

Why they occur there

  • Earthquakes mostly happen where plates meet, because stress builds up as plates:
    • Move towards each other (convergent boundaries and subduction zones).
* Slide past each other (like California’s San Andreas Fault).

* Pull apart (spreading ridges such as the Mid‑Atlantic Ridge).
  • A smaller number of quakes also occur inside plates, far from boundaries, along old faults and zones of weakness in the crust.

Examples of earthquake‑prone areas

  • Countries strongly affected include Japan, Indonesia, China, the Philippines, Turkey, and the United States (especially the western states and Alaska).
  • Even regions often seen as “stable,” like the UK, still have small quakes, though they are usually weak and infrequent compared with major plate‑boundary zones.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.