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A total of 375 major earthquakes struck near Davao in 2022. More than any other major city in the world, making the Southern Mindanao capital the most earthquake-prone city on the planet. Following in second place is Sendai in Japan, which experienced 352 significant earthquakes in 2022.

Tokyo was the most earthquake-prone world city in 2016. However, Davao overtook the Japanese capital in 2017. For the sixth year in a row now, Davao occupies the first spot on the Earthquakelist.org Top Cities Report.

A major earthquake every 23 hours

In 2022, Davao was the only world city facing more than 1 significant earthquake per day on average, with 375 magnitude 4+ earthquakes occurring within 300 kilometers of the city. This comes down to a significant earthquake occurring every 23 hours and 22 minutes.

The strongest earthquake near Davao in 2022 had a magnitude of 6.1 and struck 150 km east of the city on April 19th. In previous years Davao faced stronger earthquakes: A mag. 7.1 earthquake in 2021, a mag. 6.4 earthquake in 2020 and a mag. 6.8 earthquake in 2019.

Stronger earthquakes elsewhere

While Davao is the world's major city with the highest frequency of earthquakes, many places on earth have faced stronger earthquakes in 2022. A Mag 7.6 earthquake struck near Guadalajara in Mexico in September, making it the strongest earthquake occurring near a major city in 2022. Last year's strongest earthquake in the Philippines actually did not occur near Davao, but in Northwestern Luzon. It struck on July 27th 2022 had a magnitude of 7.0.

This publication is based on the Earthquakelist.org 2022 Top Cities Report. The site relies on data from the US Geographic Survey (USGS) and the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) for its calculations. Taken into account are any magnitude 4+ earthquakes occurring within 300 kilometers of major cities worldwide with a population over 1 million.

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