Nuclear Weapons Testing - Nuclear Testing By Country

Nuclear Testing By Country

The nuclear powers have conducted more than 2,000 nuclear test explosions (numbers are approximated, as some test results have been disputed):

• United States: 1,054 tests by official count (involving at least 1,151 devices, 331 atmospheric tests), most at Nevada Test Site and the Pacific Proving Grounds in the Marshall Islands, with 10 other tests taking place at various locations in the United States, including Amchitka Alaska, Colorado, Mississippi, and New Mexico (see Nuclear weapons and the United States for details).
• Soviet Union: 715 tests (involving 969 devices) by official count, most at Semipalatinsk Test Site and Novaya Zemlya, and a few more at various sites in Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine.
• France: 210 tests by official count (50 atmospheric, 160 underground), four atomic atmospheric tests at C.E.S.M. near Reggane, 13 atomic underground tests at C.E.M.O. near In Ekker in the then-French Algerian Sahara, and nuclear atmospheric tests at Fangataufa and nuclear undersea tests Moruroa in French Polynesia. Additional atomic and chemical warfare tests took place in the secret base B2-Namous, near Ben Wenif, other tests involving rockets and missiles at C.I.E.E.S, near Hammaguir, both in the Sahara.
• United Kingdom: 45 tests (21 in Australian territory, including nine in mainland South Australia at Maralinga and Emu Field, some at Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, plus many others in the United States as part of joint test series)
• China: 45 tests (23 atmospheric and 22 underground, at Lop Nur Nuclear Weapons Test Base, in Malan, Xinjiang)
• India: Six underground tests (including the first one in 1974), at Pokhran.
• Pakistan: Six underground tests, at Ras Koh Hills, Chagai District and Kharan Desert, Kharan District in Balochistan Province.
• North Korea: two tests at Hwadae-ri.

Additionally, there may have been at least three alleged but unacknowledged nuclear explosions (see list of alleged nuclear tests). Of these, the only one taken seriously as a possible nuclear test is the Vela Incident, a possible detection of a nuclear explosion in the Indian Ocean in 1979.

From the first nuclear test in 1945 until tests by Pakistan in 1998, there was never a period of more than 22 months with no nuclear testing. June 1998 to October 2006 was the longest period since 1945 with no acknowledged nuclear tests.