January 17, 1332 Earthquake: Marmara Sea, Turkey

Name: January 17, 1332 Earthquake: Marmara Sea, Turkey
Start: 1332-01-17
Location: Marmara Sea, Turkey

January 17, 1332 · M6.8

A magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck Marmara Sea, Turkey on January 17, 1332. It caused a tsunami.

Map

Where it struck, with the other significant earthquakes within 200 km. Circles are sized and colored by magnitude; select one for its page.

The earthquake

Date: January 17, 1332
Place: Marmara Sea, Turkey
Magnitude: 6.8 (Ms)
Magnitude scales: Ms 6.8 · Unspecified 6.8
Intensity: VIII, severe shaking, on the Modified Mercalli scale
Tsunami: Yes: the tsunami it caused
Epicenter: 40.900° N, 28.900° E
Country: Turkey
Region: Middle East

Ms: surface-wave magnitude. Unspecified: the method was not stated in the published sources. NCEI’s headline magnitude is the best of these for the earthquake.

The toll

Damage: Moderate (about $1 to $5 million) with its tsunami and other effects

Where the literature gives no number, NCEI records a description on a scale of 1 to 4, printed here in its words. Damage is in millions of US dollars of the year of the event, not adjusted for inflation.

What the record says

NCEI’s account, from the sources it cites.

12 February 1332 (16 January 1332). Marmara Sea, Istanbul. (reference #9275)

1332 February 12. Sea of Marmara. Constantinople (reference #15)

1332 Jan 17 This earthquake was felt very strongly in Constantinople and was followed by violent thunderstorms and heavy seas which caused serious damage to buildings and the sea walls. The shock itself caused no damage. (reference #14000)

AD 1332 Jan 17, Constantinople. An earthquake in the evening of St Anthony's day (17 January or 12 February) was strongly felt in Constantinople, but did no damage […] The earthquake is also recorded in a fragment of a chronicle (Chron. Byz. Brev. 8. 25/i. 79), which confirms the event. Later sources confuse the earthquake with the thunderstorm and date wrongly some of the effects of the earthquake of 1296. (reference #9116)

Note: date of described earthquake event and ‘tsunami’ event are different as the descriptions imply the waves impacting on 12 Feb while earthquake was on 17 Jan

Sources NCEI cites

The publications NCEI lists for this record. The numbers match the “reference #” notes in its account above.

#15 Ambraseys, N.N. (1962). Data for the investigation of the seismic sea-waves in the eastern Mediterranean. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, vol. 52, no. 4, p. 895-913.
#9275 Altinok, Y., Alpar, B., Özer, N., and H. Aykurt (2011). Revision of the tsunami catalogue affecting Turkish coasts and surrounding regions. Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., vol. 11, p. 273-291. DOI:10.5194/nhess-11-273-2011
#14000 Ambraseys, N. N., and Finkel, C. F. (1991). Long‐term seismicity of Istanbul and of the Marmara Sea region. Terra Nova, 3(5), 527-539.
#9116 Ambraseys, Nicolas (2009). Earthquakes in the Mediterranean and Middle East, A Multidisciplinary Study of Seismicity up to 1900. Cambridge University Press, 947 p.

Other significant earthquakes nearby

Within 200 km, the deadliest first.

Significant earthquakes of 1332 The 1300s Recent earthquakes near here This day in weather history

Sources

Significant earthquakes from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, Global Historical Hazard Database, cited as NCEI/WDS, doi:10.7289/V5PN93H7. Public domain. Read 2026-10-01. NCEI earthquake 6016.