Tectonic plates of the world
Earth’s outer shell is broken into plates that move a few centimeters a year. The PB2002 plate model maps 52 of them. The seven largest, the Pacific, African, Antarctic, North American, Eurasian, Australian and South American plates, cover 81% of the surface; the rest are mid-sized plates such as the Nazca and Philippine Sea plates and dozens of small ones.
How many tectonic plates are there?
It depends on how small a block you still call a plate. Textbooks usually name seven or eight major plates and around a dozen more minor ones. PB2002, the model used on this site, counts 52 by including microplates in places such as the southwest Pacific, Indonesia and the Andes, where measurements show blocks of crust moving separately. Some regions are still too complex to divide, and the model marks them as broad deforming zones instead.
The three kinds of plate boundary
The model’s plate edges add up to 260,490 km (161,860 mi). About 35% of that length is convergent, where plates move together and one usually sinks beneath the other; 36% is divergent, mostly mid-ocean ridges where new sea floor forms; and 28% is transform, where plates slide past each other.
The fastest of the large plates is the Nazca Plate, at an average of 7.4 cm a year. Speeds here are measured against the average motion of all plates.
Every plate by size
| Plate | Area | Share of Earth | Average speed | Direction at center |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pacific Plate | 104.6 million km² (40.4 million sq mi) | · 20.5% of Earth | 6.5 cm a year | toward the west-northwest |
| African Plate | 58.5 million km² (22.6 million sq mi) | · 11.5% of Earth | 2.8 cm a year | toward the northeast |
| Antarctic Plate | 58.2 million km² (22.5 million sq mi) | · 11.4% of Earth | 1.3 cm a year | toward the west |
| North American Plate | 55.4 million km² (21.4 million sq mi) | · 10.9% of Earth | 1.9 cm a year | toward the west |
| Eurasian Plate | 48.6 million km² (18.7 million sq mi) | · 9.5% of Earth | 2.3 cm a year | toward the east |
| Australian Plate | 46.0 million km² (17.8 million sq mi) | · 9.0% of Earth | 6.3 cm a year | toward the north-northeast |
| South American Plate | 41.8 million km² (16.1 million sq mi) | · 8.2% of Earth | 1.2 cm a year | toward the north-northwest |
| Somali Plate | 19.2 million km² (7.4 million sq mi) | · 3.8% of Earth | 2.8 cm a year | toward the east-northeast |
| Nazca Plate | 16.1 million km² (6.2 million sq mi) | · 3.2% of Earth | 7.4 cm a year | toward the east |
| Indian Plate | 12.4 million km² (4.8 million sq mi) | · 2.4% of Earth | 5.6 cm a year | toward the northeast |
| Sunda Plate | 8.9 million km² (3.4 million sq mi) | · 1.7% of Earth | 4.0 cm a year | toward the east |
| Philippine Sea Plate | 5.4 million km² (2.1 million sq mi) | · 1.1% of Earth | 4.1 cm a year | toward the west-northwest |
| Amur Plate | 5.3 million km² (2.0 million sq mi) | · 1.0% of Earth | 3.3 cm a year | toward the east-southeast |
| Arabian Plate | 4.9 million km² (1.9 million sq mi) | · 1.0% of Earth | 4.8 cm a year | toward the northeast |
| Okhotsk Plate | 3.0 million km² (1.2 million sq mi) | · 0.6% of Earth | 2.5 cm a year | toward the southeast |
| Caribbean Plate | 3.0 million km² (1.1 million sq mi) | · 0.6% of Earth | 1.3 cm a year | toward the northeast |
| Cocos Plate | 2.9 million km² (1.1 million sq mi) | · 0.6% of Earth | 7.3 cm a year | toward the northeast |
| Yangtze Plate | 2.2 million km² (0.9 million sq mi) | · 0.4% of Earth | 3.9 cm a year | toward the east-southeast |
| Scotia Plate | 1.7 million km² (0.7 million sq mi) | · 0.3% of Earth | 1.3 cm a year | toward the north-northeast |
| Caroline Plate | 1.5 million km² (0.6 million sq mi) | · 0.3% of Earth | 6.0 cm a year | toward the west-northwest |
| North Andes Plate | 972,000 km² (375,000 sq mi) | · 0.2% of Earth | 1.1 cm a year | toward the north |
| Altiplano Plate | 832,000 km² (321,000 sq mi) | · 0.2% of Earth | 1.7 cm a year | toward the north-northeast |
| Banda Sea Plate | 696,000 km² (269,000 sq mi) | · 0.1% of Earth | 3.5 cm a year | toward the northeast |
| New Hebrides Plate | 643,000 km² (248,000 sq mi) | · 0.1% of Earth | 8.4 cm a year | toward the west |
| Anatolian Plate | 576,000 km² (222,000 sq mi) | · 0.1% of Earth | 1.2 cm a year | toward the north-northeast |
| Bird’s Head Plate | 526,000 km² (203,000 sq mi) | · 0.1% of Earth | 6.7 cm a year | toward the west-northwest |
| Burma Plate | 515,000 km² (199,000 sq mi) | · 0.1% of Earth | 5.3 cm a year | toward the north-northeast |
| Kermadec Plate | 505,000 km² (195,000 sq mi) | · 0.10% of Earth | 4.1 cm a year | toward the east-northeast |
| Woodlark Plate | 453,000 km² (175,000 sq mi) | · 0.09% of Earth | 6.4 cm a year | toward the north-northeast |
| Mariana Plate | 421,000 km² (163,000 sq mi) | · 0.08% of Earth | 1.7 cm a year | toward the north-northwest |
| Molucca Sea Plate | 418,000 km² (161,000 sq mi) | · 0.08% of Earth | 2.3 cm a year | toward the east-northeast |
| North Bismarck Plate | 388,000 km² (150,000 sq mi) | · 0.08% of Earth | 7.0 cm a year | toward the west-northwest |
| Timor Plate | 353,000 km² (136,000 sq mi) | · 0.07% of Earth | 5.2 cm a year | toward the north-northeast |
| Okinawa Plate | 326,000 km² (126,000 sq mi) | · 0.06% of Earth | 6.2 cm a year | toward the southeast |
| Aegean Sea Plate | 322,000 km² (124,000 sq mi) | · 0.06% of Earth | 1.5 cm a year | toward the south-southeast |
| South Bismarck Plate | 309,000 km² (119,000 sq mi) | · 0.06% of Earth | 4.4 cm a year | toward the east-southeast |
| Panama Plate | 274,000 km² (106,000 sq mi) | · 0.05% of Earth | 1.9 cm a year | toward the northeast |
| Juan de Fuca Plate | 257,000 km² (99,000 sq mi) | · 0.05% of Earth | 2.1 cm a year | toward the east-northeast |
| Tonga Plate | 254,000 km² (98,000 sq mi) | · 0.05% of Earth | 11.3 cm a year | toward the east |
| Balmoral Reef Plate | 195,000 km² (75,000 sq mi) | · 0.04% of Earth | 4.5 cm a year | toward the west-northwest |
| Sandwich Plate | 184,000 km² (71,000 sq mi) | · 0.04% of Earth | 7.3 cm a year | toward the east-northeast |
| Easter Plate | 167,000 km² (64,000 sq mi) | · 0.03% of Earth | 4.3 cm a year | toward the north-northeast |
| Conway Reef Plate | 144,000 km² (56,000 sq mi) | · 0.03% of Earth | 3.1 cm a year | toward the north-northwest |
| Solomon Sea Plate | 129,000 km² (50,000 sq mi) | · 0.03% of Earth | 7.1 cm a year | toward the north |
| Niuafo’ou Plate | 124,000 km² (48,000 sq mi) | · 0.02% of Earth | 8.5 cm a year | toward the east |
| Maoke Plate | 115,000 km² (45,000 sq mi) | · 0.02% of Earth | 6.4 cm a year | toward the north-northeast |
| Rivera Plate | 101,000 km² (39,000 sq mi) | · 0.02% of Earth | 1.2 cm a year | toward the east |
| Juan Fernández Plate | 98,000 km² (38,000 sq mi) | · 0.02% of Earth | 8.3 cm a year | toward the northeast |
| Shetland Plate | 72,000 km² (28,000 sq mi) | · 0.01% of Earth | 2.2 cm a year | toward the north-northeast |
| Futuna Plate | 32,000 km² (12,000 sq mi) | · 0.01% of Earth | 3.8 cm a year | toward the north-northwest |
| Galápagos Plate | 15,000 km² (6,000 sq mi) | · 0.00% of Earth | 6.0 cm a year | toward the east-northeast |
| Manus Plate | 8,000 km² (3,000 sq mi) | · 0.00% of Earth | 4.4 cm a year | toward the north-northwest |
21 plates have their own page, with neighbors, boundary types, countries and volcanoes.
Sources
Bird, P. (2003), An updated digital model of plate boundaries, Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems, 4(3), 1027, doi:10.1029/2001GC000252. Released by its author into the public domain (CC0 1.0). Coastlines: Natural Earth. Speeds and boundary lengths are calculated from the model’s rotation poles and boundary steps.