How many nuclear weapons are there?
How many nuclear weapons are there?
about 12,200 warheads
The world holds about one and a half warheads for every million people alive. A single modern warhead can be more than fifty times the yield of the Hiroshima bomb.
Nine countries hold roughly 12,200 nuclear warheads between them, of which about 9,600 are in military stockpiles and the remainder are retired and awaiting dismantlement. Russia and the United States hold about 88% of the total. The peak was around 70,300 warheads in 1986, so the stockpile has fallen by more than 80% — but the decline has now stalled and several arsenals are growing again. Roughly 2,100 warheads are kept on high operational alert.
How the figure is arrived at
No government publishes a full inventory, so the standard figures are reconstructions: treaty declarations under New START, satellite imagery of storage and deployment sites, fissile material production histories, and defence budget line items. The uncertainty is a few hundred warheads, concentrated in the arsenals that disclose nothing.
How confident it is
- Low estimate
- 12,000
- High estimate
- 12,500
- Spread
- 1.0× between the bounds
Other things people built counts
- How many countries are there in the world? 195 — or 193, or 206, or 249, depending on who is counting
- How many cars are there in the world? about 1.5 billion motor vehicles
- How many planes are in the air right now? roughly 10,000 to 20,000 at any moment
- How many languages are there in the world? about 7,150 living languages
- How many McDonald's are there? about 43,000 in over 100 countries
- How many phones are there in the world? about 8.9 billion mobile connections — more than there are people
- How many websites are there? about 1.1 billion hostnames — but only around 200 million active
- How many books have ever been published? about 130 million as of 2010 — probably over 200 million now
- How many airports are there in the world? about 45,000 with runways — but only around 4,000 with scheduled airline service
- How many ATMs are there in the world? about 3 million
- How many cities are there in the world? about 10,000 with over 50,000 people; 33 megacities over 10 million
- How many buildings are there in the world? somewhere between 1.5 and 4 billion
- How many computers are there in the world? roughly 2 billion personal computers in use
- How many miles of road are there in the world? about 64 million km — roughly 40 million miles
Common questions
- How many nuclear weapons are there?
- about 12,200 warheads
- How is that estimated?
- No government publishes a full inventory, so the standard figures are reconstructions: treaty declarations under New START, satellite imagery of storage and deployment sites, fissile material production histories, and defence budget line items. The uncertainty is a few hundred warheads, concentrated in the arsenals that disclose nothing.
Related pages
- How many countries are there in the world? 195 — or 193, or 206, or 249, depending on who is counting
- How many cars are there in the world? about 1.5 billion motor vehicles
- How many planes are in the air right now? roughly 10,000 to 20,000 at any moment
- How many languages are there in the world? about 7,150 living languages
- How many McDonald's are there? about 43,000 in over 100 countries
- How many phones are there in the world? about 8.9 billion mobile connections — more than there are people
- How many websites are there? about 1.1 billion hostnames — but only around 200 million active
- How many books have ever been published? about 130 million as of 2010 — probably over 200 million now
- How many people are there in the world? Living things and the natural world
- How many stars are there in the universe? Space and the universe
- How many bones are in the human body? The human body
- How many grains of sand are there on Earth? Living things and the natural world
- How many ants are there in the world? Living things and the natural world
- How many trees are there in the world? Living things and the natural world
Sources
- Typical range compiled from manufacturer specifications — At One Place