The history of the Azores archipelago, from its discovery and settlement in the first half of the 15th century through the present, is marked by the social and economic impacts produced by earthquakes, mainly the high-intensity ones. Information that has been compiled leads to the conclusion that in this period, 33 earthquakes with intensity equal to or greater than VII have affected the Azores, which caused approximately 6,300 deaths and widespread destruction on some islands of the archipelago, principally S. Miguel, Terceira, Graciosa, Faial, S. Jorge and Pico Islands. The accommodation of strain resulting from the dynamics of the Azores triple junction (ATJ) plate boundary and volcanism, which also occurs in the region, are the main factors responsible for the intense seismic activity in this archipelago. This work reviews the scientific issues of the known earthquakes that have severely interfered with the lives of the Azorean people throughout their history, which we call large earthquakes.

This work is co-funded by the European Union through the European fund of Regional Development, framed in COMPETE 2020 (Operational Competitiveness Programmeand Internationalisation) through the ICT project (UID/GEO/04683/2013) with the reference POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007690. The work also was conducted within the scope of the MEDYNA FP7-PEOPLE- 2013-IRSES project, project CGL2013-45724- C3-1-R and MITMOTION project with Ref. PT-DZ/0003/2015. João Fontiela is sup- ported by project M3.1.2/F/060/2011 of the Regional Science Fund of the Regional Government, Azores. International Seismological Centre On-line Bulletin.