Nuclear Weapon Stockpiles by Country

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First published: Monday July 5th, 2021

This chart demonstrates estimates of the nuclear weapon stockpiles of countries throughout history

According to Wikipedia

Excludes former Soviet Republics that temporarily held nuclear weapons in 1991

For non-exact figures, the average (rounded up) of the given range is picked

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Year	U.S.	Russia	China	France	UK	India	Pakistan	Israel	North Korea	South Africa
1939
1945	2
1950	299	5
1955	2422	200			14
1960	18638	1605			42
1965	31149	6129		32	436
1970	26008	11643	75	36	394			8
1975	27519	19055	180	188	492			20
1980	23368	30062	205	250	492	1		31
1985	21392	39197	243	360	422	3		42		3
1990	10904	37000	232	505	422	7	4	53	1	6
1995	10577	27000	234	500	422	14	13	63	1	0
2000	8360	21500	232	470	281	28	28	72	1	0
2005	7700	17000	235	350	281	44	38	80	8	0
2014	7260	7500	260	300	215	100	110	80	7	0
2020	5800	6375	320	290	215	150	160	85	35	0

21 Comments

Level 64

Sep 27, 2021

I find it interesting that since the mid-90s India and Pakistan are almost identical in terms of the development of their respective stockpiles.

Level 77

Sep 30, 2021

Also sort of concerning, but gladly in 2021 we can safely say that those figures didn't lead to any actual conflicts

Level 57

May 12, 2025

Uh oh

Level 71

Sep 27, 2021

Is there a reason why China, France, and the UK start so abruptly? Like, did China really make 75 nuclear weapons in just 1970 (which I kinda doubt)? Or is it just that we don't have data going back further?

Level 71

Sep 27, 2021

Oh also congrats on getting a chart featured! Thought you were Quizmaster for a second lol

Level 77

Sep 30, 2021

Tank, this is very poggers :D

Level 59

Sep 27, 2021

Maybe that was the first time that official numbers were made public?

Level 69

Sep 27, 2021

I think they were gifts from their respective allies that had already developed nuclear arms.

Level 39

Sep 27, 2021

There's channel on YouTube called History Matters that talks about how these three countries got their nuclear weapons. They're in three separate videos that are all about 3-4 minutes long.

Level 77

Sep 30, 2021

I have no idea, I just copied the data from Wikipedia lol

Level 43

Sep 27, 2021

Second featured user-chart! Yahoo! 2.0 lol

Level 67

Sep 27, 2021

Gmail!

Level 43

Sep 27, 2021

Hotmail :)