This article contains a list of nuclear weapon explosion sites used across the world. It includes nuclear test sites, nuclear combat sites, launch sites for rockets forming part of a nuclear test, and peaceful nuclear test (PNE) sites. There are a few non-nuclear sites included, such as the Degelen Omega chemical blast sites, which are intimately involved with nuclear testing. Listed with each is an approximate location and coordinate link for viewing through GeoHack, and each site is linked to a Wikipedia page on the locality or the nuclear event(s) that occurred there.
A bombing range and more lately a missile range centered in the south near Las Cruces, an area in the north part of the range was acquired during World War II and used for the Trinity test. An area near the Trinity site is designated the Permanent High Explosive Test Site (PHETS) and was used in the 1980s to host very large ANFO blasts for international testing of military gear.
The Trinity nuclear site was originally private property taken over by the Army to test the plutoniumimplosion weapon, the first nuclear explosion on Earth.
The first target of nuclear weapons, the Mark I atomic bomb. The target was the Aioi Bridge across the Ōta River; it exploded several hundred yards off. Hiroshima was a city of 250,000, suffering 70,000 or so deaths immediately and up to 126,000 by the end of the year.
The second target of nuclear weapons, Nagasaki was a city of 240,000 swelled to 263,000 on the day of the strike, chosen when the primary target, Kokura, was found clouded over. About 40,000 died immediately, and officially 73,884 died altogether. 74,909 were injured. Hillier than Hiroshima, the 33% increase in yield from Little Boy resulted in slightly fewer casualties.
Formerly known as Christmas Island (the Pacific one, not the one in the Indian Ocean) Kiritimati was used as an air base for bombers dropping nuclear tests mostly south of the island. It hosted most of the Operation Dominic drops as well as most of Britain's Operation Grapple.
A nuclear test site carved out of the Nevada Test and Training Range in Nye County, Nevada in 1952. Roughly the size of Rhode Island, it contains many terrains in which various bombs can be tested.
Frenchman Flat was the first area at the NTS used, mostly for drop tests. A small city of structures, a pine forest and multiple cars, trucks and military vehicles were positioned on the salt flat for tests. It is the original "Doom Town".
The heaviest used test area in the NTS, used early for atmospheric, tower, balloon and crater tests, later for bore-hole tests. The latter are responsible for the large number of subsidence craters for which the area is known.
An area of the NTS which was used for only one zero-yield dispersion test. The area was returned to the Nellis Range, and the subject of considerable cleanup efforts for dispersed plutonium.
The area in which the butte terrain is very amenable for underground horizontal tunnel testing. Contains over a dozen large tunnel complexes and a couple of bore-hole tests.
The farthest north of the NTS areas, this area was used mainly for bore-hole testing in hard rock and hard cap rock situations. It hosted at least one hard rock cratering blast.
A large area in the NTS southwest. It was not used for nuclear testing, but contains the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, the MX missile mobile test site, the NERVA nuclear rocket test facilities, the BREN Tower, and the X tunnel facility in which depleted uranium weapons were tested. Many of these facilities have been torn down and removed.
A mountainous area used for only one Operation Plowshare test, Buggy, in which five bombs in a row were fired in salvo, as a test of trench cutting using nukes.
An area in the NTS in which three tests were executed. It is the site of the EPA's dairy farm which measured cow uptake of fission products, and the old Climax silver mine. Adjacent to the infamous Area 51, on its east edge.
An area containing a single horizontal tunnel complex used for six separate nuclear tests. It is also the site for the Divine Strake conventional blast experiment, which was aborted by public protests.
The area owned by the Air Force as the Tonopah Test Range, in which conventional bombs and tactics are evaluated. In 1963, four nuclear dispersion tests in the Roller Coaster series were executed on Tonopah Range land.
An area of the South Atlantic Ocean was used in the Argus tests, three rocket launches with small devices to explode in the ionosphere to test electron injection into the magnetosphere as a defensive weapon against enemy ICBM command and control.
A site for the underground testing of large (5 Mt) weapons was sought, since the NTS alluvial valley wasn't suitable, by testing with a 1 Mt "calibration" weapon. The Faultless shot showed central Nevada to be too unstable. The search then turned to Amchitka Island in Alaska.
Amchitka Island in the Aleutian Islands chain was an alternate site for the underground testing of large nuclear warheads. Used for the Vela Uniform test Long Shot, it was tested for the larger role when Faultless in central Nevada proved that area unsuitable. The Millrow test showed suitability, and the island was used for the 5 Mt Cannikin test, the largest underground test ever performed.
A site near Rifle, Colorado was used to explode three nuclear devices simultaneously, hoping to create a reservoir in which oil and natural gas could collect. The test was named Rio Blanco.
A set of tests designed to allow scientists to get calibrated seismic and other data from known shots for the purposes of nuclear testing detection and verification. Later, the verification was to determine that tests could be detected by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization protocols, and in calibrating their equipment.
The US mission to Kazakhstan set off a series of explosions in an unused tunnel for Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty calibration, and as test precursors for the eventual destruction of all tunnels in Degelen, known as the Omega series.
The US's first national laboratory, Los Alamos was created secretly during World War II to build the first nuclear weapon. During the 1958 moratorium on nuclear testing, a number of sub-critical tests were performed underground to learn more about the dynamics of explosions and the metallurgy of plutonium.
The US's first nuclear weapons lab, founded in the Manhattan Project in high secrecy. Tech Area 49 is an open area south of the lab, where zero-yield tests were executed in shallow bore holes during the 1958 moratorium.
A mountain massif in the Kazakh plains, Degelen was bored with a hundred or so test tunnels. It was the site for the majority of the zero-yield testing at Semipalatinsk. After being returned to Kazakhstan, the tunnels were closed, then more permanently closed to discourage metal thievery.
The southern end of Novaya Zemlya has been the location for a number of underwater, tower and rocket drop tests of nuclear weapons. Rogachevo Air Base is also located in the area, the launch area for several of nuclear armed missiles targeted north on Sukhoy Nos.
A mountainous area (on the south side of the north end of the strait which names the test area) is used for horizontal tunnel testing and zero-yield testing. It is still in use for the latter today.
The area on the north side of Matochin Strait, used for air and rocket tests of massive blasts. The Tsar Bomba was tested here. The name refers to the land that forms the peninsula on the north side of the west end of the strait.
The first Soviet missile launch and test area. From the original V-2 rocket launch area almost a dozen nuclear armed missiles were launched to explode over Sary Sagan, Central and West Kazakhstan and the Volgograd Oblast (region in Russia).
Kyzylorda was the location over which the 5th Project K rocket propelled bomb exploded. It also hosts the Baikonur Cosmodrome, uninvolved in nuclear testing.
This region has the Kapustin Yar space center, from which many nuclear armed missiles were tested. 15 tests to create natural gas reservoirs, called the Vega series are in Astrakhan.
This autonomous republic contains six PNEs, five named Butan (Butane) and concerned with oil/gas recovery intensification, and two Kama for creating chemical waste storage areas.
This district hosts five different PNEs: Kraton 1 (Craton), Kvarts 3 (Quartz) and Kimberlit 1 (Kimberlite), seismic probes; and Angara and Benzol (Benzine), oil intensifications.
The area has seven seismic probe PNEs: Meteorit 2 and 3 (Meteorite), Kimberlit 3 (Kimberlite), Batholit 1 (Batholith), Kraton 2 (Craton), 'Gorizont 3 (Horizon) and Rift 4, and an oil intensification PNE: Schpat 2 (Spar).
Besides the infamous Totskoye nuclear exercise, Orenburg hosts three seismic probe PNEs: Magistral (Highway) and Region 1 and 2, and an oil intensification PNE: Sapfir 1 and 2 (Sapphire).
Hosts seismic probe PNEs Kimberlit 4 (Kimberlite), Kraton 3-4 (Craton), an excavation PNE Krystal (Crystal), and oil intensification shots of the Neva series of 5.
Containing part of Semipalatinsk and all of Sary Shagan, Karagandy has a single PNE named Meridian 1, but also had four of the Project K nuclear rockets explode in space above its soil.
An archipelago of islands on Australia's northwest coast, the area was chosen for three British tests. The first, Hurricane, was in a ship in a waterway; the other two were tower shots on a couple of the islands.
The site of a pair of British test series named Buffalo and Antler, as well as a long series of "small" tests: safety tests, zero yield tests and so on. Test site is no longer part of the Woomera Prohibited Area.
Formerly known as Christmas Island (the Pacific one, not the one in the Indian Ocean) Kiritimati was used as an air base for bombers dropping nuclear tests mostly south of the island It hosted most of the Operation Dominic drops as well as most of Britain's Operation Grapple.
In 1958 the US and the UK concluded the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement. Among other things, it gave the UK the right to use the US testing facilities to test their weapon designs. The UK tested 24 weapons underground in the US starting in 1962, ending when the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty closed all testing in 1991.
A French experimental facility, Centre Saharien d'Expérimentations Militaires (CEMO), was chosen for France's initial bomb tests. The fourth bomb Gerboise Verte had to be scuttled so it would not be confiscated by the Algerian regime in revolt.[1]
A large mountain massif in Algeria near the village of In Eker was leased from Algeria for French underground testing base under the name Centre d'Expérimentations Militaires des Oasis (CSEM); the nearby smaller rock of Adrar Tikertine was the site of five safety tests named Pollen.[1]
The primary atoll for French nuclear tests in French Polynesia. Earlier tests were air drops in the area, later bore holes into the coral and volcanic rock underneath were used.[2]
The Nanshan (South Mountain) featured a mountain bluff ideal for horizontal tunneling. Four, and later a fifth, tunnels were bored to accommodate six nuclear tests and a series of sub-critical tests.[3]
A series of low hills in a populated area in Pakistan, in which the Army dug tunnels in which to perform "cold" (zero-yield) tests in preparation for building their nuclear weapon.
The test site for the first Pakistani weapon, a horizontal tunnel dug under a mountain massif. The trademark pictures of the test are of the mountain shaking off a layer of dust and avalanching rock from the internal impact.
A test area for tunnel tests in northeastern North Korea. It sported several horizontal tunnels under the surrounding mountains but eventually testing settled on a single area under a mountain to the north of the base. The 2017 test weakened the mountain support and caused a cave-in, resulting in a reported 200 worker deaths. Punggye-ri was formally closed in May 2018, and destruction of the facilities and the tunnels was witnessed.
The intended site for South Africa's first nuclear tests. The site was prepared for use, and then abandoned when the apartheid government decided to give up nuclear weapons.
Brazil had a semi-clandestine weapons program called the "Parallel Program" until 1990 when President Fernando Collor de Mello canceled it, and this was to be the test site.
^Albrecht, David (May 1994). South Africa's Secret Nuclear Weapons (Report). Institute for Science and International Security Report. Retrieved 25 April 2014.
