Nuclear Warhead Stockpiles: an Interactive Data Story from Our World in Data
This dataset gives the estimated number of nuclear warheads in each country’s stockpile, from the Federation of American Scientists. It covers the nine nuclear-armed states from 1945 to today.
On this page the dataset is downloaded live from Our World in Data, straight into your browser, and turned into an interactive dashboard and a data story told as a conversation. Nothing is uploaded to a server and nothing needs installing.
Interactive dashboard and data story
At a glance
| Indicator | Nuclear Warhead Stockpiles |
| Unit | warheads |
| Coverage | yearly values from 1945 to the latest release |
| Highlighted entities | United States, Russia, China, France, United Kingdom |
| OWID chart id | nuclear-warhead-stockpiles |
| Column | number_of_warheads |
| Story format | Conversation |
| Source | Our World in Data, CC BY 4.0 |
Why this dataset is told as a conversation
A few actors and a clear plot, the arms race and then disarmament. It works as a conversation, one question at a time.
Each section opens on a question and the answer types itself in, bubble by bubble, with the chart in a card. Datastripes can tell any dataset in eight formats: scrolling article, slide deck, conversation, newspaper front page, timeline, tap-through stories, quiz and bento grid. In automatic mode it picks one from the shape of the data. Here the format is fixed to the one that fits this indicator best. You can see every format side by side in the data story gallery.
Background
The United States built the first atomic bombs in 1945 and the Soviet Union tested its own in 1949. The arms race that followed peaked in 1986, when the world held over 60,000 warheads, almost all American or Soviet.
Arms control treaties such as START and New START, and the end of the Cold War, cut stockpiles by more than 80%. China is now the fastest-growing nuclear power, and the remaining arms control framework between the US and Russia has largely broken down.
How the indicator is measured
Stockpiles include warheads assigned to military forces, deployed or in storage, but exclude retired warheads awaiting dismantlement. Numbers are estimates based on public documents, budgets, satellite imagery and leaks, because most countries do not disclose them.
What to look for in the data
- The Soviet stockpile overtook the US in the late 1970s.
- The world total peaked in 1986 and fell steeply over the following two decades.
- China’s stockpile was small and stable for decades and has grown quickly since around 2020.
- France and the United Kingdom keep a few hundred warheads each.
Limits and caveats
- All values are estimates; the uncertainty is largest for China, North Korea, Israel and Pakistan.
- Stockpile counts say nothing about warhead yield or delivery systems.
- Retired warheads still awaiting dismantlement are excluded, so totals are lower than all existing warheads.
Who uses nuclear warhead stockpiles data
- Security and arms control researchers
- History teachers
- Foreign policy journalists
- International relations students
How to analyze this dataset yourself
- Open the data. Download the CSV from the Our World in Data chart and drop it into Datastripes. It loads in your browser, with no upload.
- Filter the entities. The file has one row per country and year. Filter the
entitycolumn to the countries or regions you care about, or usecode(for examplefas) to pick out aggregates. - Pick a time window. Sort or filter on the time column to isolate a period, such as the years before and after a policy change.
- Join other indicators. Add a second OWID file, for example GDP or population, and join it on entity and year to look for relations.
- Forecast and simulate. Run a no-code forecast on any series, or build what-if scenarios on top of it.
- Publish a story. Turn your filtered table into a data story in any of the eight formats and embed it on your site with the Datastripes dashboard widget.
Related data stories
- Military Expenditure (% of GDP): slide deck
- Life Expectancy: timeline
- CO2 Emissions: timeline
- GDP Per Capita (Maddison): newspaper front page
- All data stories in the gallery
Frequently asked questions
Which country has the most nuclear weapons?
Russia, followed closely by the United States. Together they hold about 90% of the world’s warheads.
Where do these numbers come from?
The Federation of American Scientists Nuclear Notebook, which estimates arsenals from open sources.
Why did stockpiles fall so much?
Treaties between the US and the Soviet Union, then Russia, together with the end of the Cold War, led to large reductions.
Data: Our World in Data, published under CC BY 4.0, downloaded in your browser when you open this page. Datastripes is not affiliated with Our World in Data. Visualisations are generated automatically and may lag behind the latest OWID release by a few days.