Nobody actually knows how many volcanoes exist on Earth. The number depends entirely on your definition of “volcano” and whether you’re counting the ones underwater that nobody’s bothered to map yet.
The commonly cited figure is around 1,500 potentially active volcanoes. That’s volcanoes that have erupted within the last 10,000 years or show signs they might erupt again.
Why Counting Geological Features Turns Out To Be Surprisingly Difficult
Defining a volcano is harder than it sounds. Is a volcanic field with 50 separate cinder cones one volcano or 50? Is a volcano that last erupted 20,000 years ago extinct or just taking a long break?
The Smithsonian’s Global Volcanism Program lists around 1,350 volcanoes that have erupted in the Holocene—the last 10,000 years. This is the most authoritative database we have. But it’s incomplete.
Submarine volcanoes complicate everything. The ocean covers 71% of Earth’s surface. Most volcanic activity occurs underwater along mid-ocean ridges. Estimates suggest there might be 1 million underwater volcanoes, though “volcano” here often means seamounts.
One estimate puts active submarine volcanoes—ones that have erupted recently—at around 75,000. But detecting underwater eruptions is difficult unless they’re shallow enough to disturb surface waters.
The Pacific Ring of Fire contains about 75% of the worlds active volcanoes. That’s roughly 1,000 of the 1,350 Holocene volcanoes. Indonesia alone has 130 active volcanoes—more than any other country. Japan has 110.
By Continent When You Try To Organize Chaos Into Geographic Categories
Asia dominates volcanic activity. Indonesia, Philippines, Japan, Kamchatka—subduction zones everywhere.
North America has significant volcanic regions—the Cascades, Alaska’s Aleutian arc, Mexico’s Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt. Yellowstone’s supervolcano gets attention, but most American volcanic hazards are in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.
South America’s Andes run the entire western edge of the continent. Chile has more than 90 active volcanoes. The Nazca Plate subducting beneath South America has been creating volcanoes for 25 million years.
Europe has fewer volcanoes but they’re well-known. Italy’s Vesuvius, Etna, Stromboli. Iceland’s numerous volcanic systems. Greece’s Santorini.
Africa is surprisingly quiet volcanically. East African Rift has some activity—Nyiragongo, Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya. Only about 150 Holocene volcanoes on the entire continent.
Antarctica has volcanoes, though they’re hard to access. Mount Erebus is the southernmost active volcano. Several others exist beneath the ice sheet. We don’t know exactly how many because the ice covers everything.
The Ones We Haven’t Found Yet And Probably Wont For Decades
New volcanoes get discovered regularly. Satellite imagery reveals previously unknown volcanic features in remote areas.
In 2013, researchers discovered 19 new submarine volcanoes off the coast of Australia. Just found them sitting there, unknown until sonar imaging happened to scan that area.
The ocean floor is less mapped than the surface of Mars. We have better topographic data for Mars than for most of Earth’s seafloor. Submarine volcanic systems remain largely unmapped.
Volcanic fields complicate the counting problem. The San Francisco Volcanic Field in Arizona contains 600 volcanoes spread across 4,700 square kilometers. Are those 600 separate volcanoes or one big volcanic system?
Monogenetic fields—fields where each volcano erupts once then goes extinct—contain thousands of individual vents globally. Most aren’t individually tracked. They’re grouped as fields and treated as single volcanic systems for hazard assesment purposes.
The Yellowstone volcanic system has erupted dozens or hundreds of times over its 2.1 million year history. Is that one volcano or many?
Why The Number Matters Less Than You’d Think
For practical purposes, we care about volcanoes that might affect human populations. That’s maybe 500-600 volcanoes globally.
The total number of volcanoes—whether 1,500 or 75,000 or 1 million—matters less than understanding which ones are likely to erupt soon and what damage they might cause.
Iceland has 30 active volcanic systems. Only 13 have erupted since Iceland was settled in 874 AD.
Indonesia monitors about 70 of its 130 active volcanoes. The others get periodic check-ins but lack real-time monitoring equipment.
So how many volcanoes are there? About 1,350 that have erupted in the last 10,000 years that we know about. Maybe 75,000 submarine volcanoes that have erupted recently. Possibly 1 million seamounts total if you count every underwater mountain.
The real answer is “we don’t know exactly and probably never will.” New ones get discovered. Old ones get reclassified. The Earth makes volcanoes faster than we can count them.
