Abstract This paper introduces a method for the evaluation of the seismic risk at the site of an engineering project. The results are in terms of a ground motion parameter (such as peak acceleration) versus average return period. The method incorporates the influence of all potential sources of earthquakes and the average activity rates assigned to them. Arbitrary geographical relationships between the site and potential point, line, or areal sources can be modeled with computational ease. In the range of interest, the derived distributions of maximum annual ground motions are in the form of Type I or Type II extreme value distributions, if the more commonly assumed magnitude distribution and attenuation laws are used.