Volcano Map

Last updated 11 October 2026

What the map shows

Each dot is a volcano from the NOAA NCEI Volcano Locations Database, a public domain list kept by the US National Centers for Environmental Information. We keep every volcano that has a position and is not dated only to the Pleistocene, which leaves 1,603. Switch types on and off in the panel; gray lines are the plate boundaries of the PB2002 model.

The pattern is the pattern of plate tectonics. Volcanoes crowd above subduction zones, where a sinking plate melts and feeds volcanic arcs Volcanic arc. A curved chain of volcanoes that runs parallel to an ocean trench, always on the landward side, fed by the plate sinking below it. Source . They line up along rifts and mid-ocean ridges, where plates pull apart, as in Iceland and East Africa. A few stand alone in the middle of plates over hotspots Hotspot. A small, long-lived, very hot region under a plate that feeds volcanoes far from plate edges, such as Hawaii. As the plate moves over it, a chain of volcanoes forms. Source , like Hawaii.

Key facts

1. The NOAA NCEI Volcano Locations Database lists 1,603 volcanoes with a position, after leaving out those it dates only to the Pleistocene. NOAA NCEI Volcano Locations Database
2. Stratovolcanoes are the most common type: 790, or 49%. USGS calls them, with cinder cones, shield volcanoes and lava domes, one of the four main kinds. USGS, Principal types of volcanoes
3. United States has the most volcanoes in the database (189), then Russia (170) and Indonesia (136).
4. 66% of the volcanoes (1,050) are within 450 km of the Ring of Fire or the Sunda arc, and 90% are within 450 km of some plate boundary. Bird (2003)
5. The highest is Ojos del Salado, Nevados (Argentina) at 6,879 m. The deepest summit is Unnamed, 6,000 m below sea level.
6. Mauna Loa, at 4,170 m here, is the largest shield volcano. USGS notes its top is over 28,000 feet above the deep ocean floor. USGS, Principal types of volcanoes
7. The volcano farthest from any plate boundary is Kama'ehuakanaloa (United States), about 3,560 km away. Such volcanoes sit over hotspots. USGS, Hotspots

Volcanoes by type

NOAA records a type for each volcano. We merge them into six groups: for example, complex and compound volcanoes go with stratovolcanoes, and maars, scoria cones and volcanic fields with cones.

Data source: NOAA NCEI Volcano Locations Database, Public domain (US Government work). Download: CSV .

Volcanoes by country

Country names as NOAA records them; volcanoes on the open sea floor are listed under the ocean.

Data source: NOAA NCEI Volcano Locations Database, Public domain (US Government work).

Volcanoes by tectonic plate

Data source: PB2002 plate model, Bird (2003), converted by Hugo Ahlenius, Nordpil, ODC-By 1.0.

Highest volcanoes

Data source: NOAA NCEI Volcano Locations Database, Public domain (US Government work).

NOAA status

NOAA gives each volcano a status that says how its activity is known, for example from written history or from radiocarbon dating. Counts as recorded:

Data source: NOAA NCEI Volcano Locations Database, Public domain (US Government work).

Download

volcanoes-ncei.csv has one row per volcano: name, country, longitude, latitude, elevation, type, NOAA status, PB2002 plate, distances to the nearest boundary and subduction zone, and the Ring of Fire flag. NOAA data is public domain; the plate columns come from PB2002 (ODC-By 1.0). See data credits.

Next: the Ring of Fire map, hotspot volcanoes, the Cascade volcanoes and Cascadia, or the earthquake map.