“Epicenter” or “Epicentre”—What's the difference?

Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

Of the 12 countries below, 7 prefer “epicenter” and 4 prefer “epicentre”. Usage levels are out of 100; the more common spelling in each country is in bold.

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country	epicenter	epicentre	Preference
United States	96	4	“epicenter”
United Kingdom	36	64	“epicentre”
India	73	27	“epicenter”
Philippines	99	1	“epicenter”
Canada	65	35	“epicenter”
Australia	32	68	“epicentre”
Liberia	0	0	Not enough data
Ireland	40	60	“epicentre”
New Zealand	41	59	“epicentre”
Jamaica	81	19	“epicenter”
Trinidad & Tobago	80	20	“epicenter”
Guyana	100	0	“epicenter”

Usage

Examples in context

Real sentences for each spelling. Hover an example to copy it.

“epicenter”

…the municipalities closest to the epicenter, such as Sagbayan, San Isidro,…
…Ocean earthquake, which had an epicenter about 60 km to the
…measured 7.8 Mw and its epicenter was identified at a distance…
…within 600 miles of the epicenter, and an hour after that,…
The city was the epicenter of the October 31, 1895…
…25 November 1667 with an epicenter close to the city of…
…slope line, and is the "epicenter"; quite close to the intersection…
…Tehran, roughly east of the epicenter, although no serious damage was
"Each, in different ways, an epicenter of death and a systematic…
…of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake's epicenter.

“epicentre”

…in the ground), with its epicentre approximately east-southeast of Lamjung, Nepal,…
Meso-zeaxanthin is concentrated at the epicentre of the macula, where it…
This area had been the epicentre of post-election violence in 2007-2008.
The epicentre of the Catalan earthquake of…
…to the west of the epicentre, on 27 April.
…(CD Sampler) 2002, Track #4 "Epicentre" – D-Side
…2002, Disc #2, Track #14 "Epicentre" – ZYX Music
…– an earthquake, with an epicentre near Jedy, occurred.
…K along with her husband Oleksander.
…of 40 miles with an epicentre from Mehtar Lam, the capital…

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

Too much to remember?

Looking for a tool that handles this for you wherever you write?

Install Sapling Try the grammar checker