List of tectonic plates

Global earthquake epicenters, 1963-1998.

Current plates (2019)

Plate tectonics map from NASA

This is a list of the biggest tectonic plates on Earth. Including small ones, there are about a hundred tectonic plate. These are only the large ones.

Primary plates

These seven plates make up most of the seven continents, and the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

• African plate
• Antarctic plate
• Indo-Australian plate
• North American plate
• Pacific plate
• South American plate
• Eurasian plate

Secondary plates

These plates are generally shown on major plate maps, with the exception of the Arabian and Indian plates, which are smaller than the others.

• Arabian plate
• Caribbean plate
• Cocos plate
• Juan de Fuca plate
• Indian plate
• Nazca plate
• Philippine Sea plate ( also known as the Filipino plate)
• Scotia plate
• Panama Plate

Tertiary plates

These are parts of major plates, and bits and pieces of ancient plates that became broken up.

• Agean plate

Related pages

• Plate tectonics

Other websites

• Bird, P. (2003) An updated digital model of plate boundaries also available as a large (13 mb) PDF file