Nuclear Weapons

by Max Roser and Mohamed Nagdy

Nuclear weapons technology was developed during the 1930s and 1940s.
The first nuclear weapons were detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in
August 1945. The devastating power of the bombs dropped on Japan forced
the surrender of the Japanese. Since then, controlling the proliferation of
nuclear weapons has been an important issue in international relations and
the two detonations in Japan remained the only ever usage in warfare.

This entries details the development of nuclear technology, the number of

warheads and the number of countries with nuclear capabilities.

Nuclear weapons over time

The first is to look at the stockpiles of nuclear weapons each superpower built
up. The total number of nuclear weapons in the world peaked in 1986. It is
also worth remembering that the destructive power of each nuclear warhead
has increased significantly since the first atomic weapons used in the Second
World War. What is more, the number of states with confirmed nuclear
capabilities now includes the US, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan,
Israel and North Korea.

Nuclear weapons test

If we consider the number of nuclear weapons tests, we can see that the Cold
War was a very active period of nuclear weapons development. Although
nuclear weapons were only ever used in warfare during the Second World
War, there have been over 2000 nuclear weapons tests since then. Most
recently North Korea conducted nuclear weapons tests in 2006, 2009 and
2013.

World map of nuclear weapons test

The location of these nuclear weapons tests is shown on this world map by
cartographer Bill Rankin.
Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto has created a time lapse map that shows
every nuclear explosion between 1945 and 1998. You can watch the video
below.

Nuclear Powers

It is a common misconception that more and more nations are exploring and
developing nuclear weapons since the Second World War. As the following
graph demonstrates, there have been peaks in nuclear weapon development
in the past few decades. By the late 1980s, the number of nations developing
nuclear weapons started falling and has remained steady since the mid-
1990s.
The names in the graph below represent nations developing weapons, and
countries marked with "-" represent the year in which development in that
country ceased.

Non-nuclear states that started and stopped exploring nuclear weapons, 1945-2010 –
Pinker3

Obtaining an accurate count of the nuclear warheads possessed by each

country today is difficult, since each country controls the publicly available
information relating to its nuclear capabilities for security reasons. The data
presented here is taken from the Federation of American Scientists Nuclear
Notebook and should be taken as a best-estimate of the capabilities of each
country. In addition to this, Israel maintains a policy of nuclear ambiguity and
refuses to confirm or deny its nuclear capabilities.

The data on nuclear weapons tests come from the Oklohoma Geological
Survey and can be considered an accurate count of nuclear weapons tests.