A cartography of the atomic age

Nuclear Tests & Power Reactors

In the summer of 1945, humanity learned to split the atom — and almost immediately learned to do it again, and again, in deserts, on atolls, deep underground, and high in the sky. The same physics also gave us a way to keep the lights on: a slow, contained version of the same chain reaction, humming away in concrete domes from Idaho to Fujian. This map holds both stories side by side — the bombs we set off and the reactors we built — on a single timeline you can scrub through, one year at a time.

2,051 announced detonations between Trinity (1945) and the most recent DPRK test, totalling roughly 540 megatons of explosive yield. 1,747 grid-scale power reactors operating, retired, under construction, or planned, from Obninsk (1954) onward. Toggle either layer on the map; both share one timeline.