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Data

Estimated nuclear warhead stockpiles

What you should know about this indicator

  • Stockpiles include warheads assigned to military forces, but exclude retired warheads queued for dismantlement.
  • Retired warheads are only included in the global total.
  • The exact number of countries' warheads is secret, and the estimates are based on publicly available information, historical records, and occasional leaks.
  • Warheads vary substantially in their destructing power.
Estimated nuclear warhead stockpiles
Estimated number of nuclear warheads in the stockpiles of nuclear powers.
Source
Federation of American Scientists (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
May 15, 2025
Next expected update
May 2026
Date range
1945–2024
Unit
warheads

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

Federation of American Scientists – Estimated Global Nuclear Warhead Inventories

This dataset provides information on the number of stockpiled nuclear warheads by the nuclear powers.

Retrieved on
May 15, 2025
Retrieved from
https://fas.org/initiative/status-world-nuclear-forces/
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Robert S. Norris, Eliana Johns, and Mackenzie Knight, Federation of American Scientists - Estimated Global Nuclear Warhead Inventories.

This dataset provides information on the number of stockpiled nuclear warheads by the nuclear powers.

Retrieved on
May 15, 2025
Retrieved from
https://fas.org/initiative/status-world-nuclear-forces/
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Robert S. Norris, Eliana Johns, and Mackenzie Knight, Federation of American Scientists - Estimated Global Nuclear Warhead Inventories.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Estimated nuclear warhead stockpiles”, part of the following publication: Bastian Herre, Pablo Rosado, and Max Roser (2024) - “Nuclear Weapons”. Data adapted from Federation of American Scientists. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260428-080933/grapher/nuclear-warhead-stockpiles-lines.html [online resource] (archived on April 28, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Federation of American Scientists (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

Federation of American Scientists (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Estimated nuclear warhead stockpiles” [dataset]. Federation of American Scientists, “Estimated Global Nuclear Warhead Inventories” [original data]. Retrieved April 28, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260428-080933/grapher/nuclear-warhead-stockpiles-lines.html (archived on April 28, 2026).

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