Earthquakes in japan with either a magnitude greaterthan or equal to 7.0 or which caused significant damage or casualties. as indicated below, magnitude is masured on the Richer magnityde scale(ML) or the moment magnitude scale (MW), or the surface wave magnitude scale (MS) for very old earthquakes. the present list is not exhaustive, and reliable and precise magnitude data is scarce for earthquakes that occured prior to the development of modern ,easuring instruments.

Altough there is mention of an earthquake in Yamato in what is now Nara Prefecture on August 23, 416, the first to be reliably documented took palace in nara prefecture on May 28,599 during the reign of express suiko, detroying buildings throughout Yamato province. Mnay historical records of japanese  earthquakes exist, and the Imperial Earthqauke Investigation committe was created in 1892 to conduct a systematic collation of the available historical data, published in 1899 as the Catalogue of hisyorical data on japanese earhquakes. Following the 1923 great kanto earthquake Investigation Committe was superseded by the earthquake research institude in 1925. In modern times, the catalogues compiled by Tatsuo Usami are considered to provide the most authoritative  source of information on historics earthquakes, with the 2003 eedition detailing 486 that took place between 416 and 1888.