HUMANITY ON THE MOON

Every Moon landing site

Not a list on its own. Each of these has a place on the Moon, and you can go and stand on it — on terrain measured by a laser, not drawn by hand.

24
reached the surface
6
crewed landings
14
robotic landings
4
hard impacts

Every Moon landing site

DateCraftCountryTypeLon / Lat
1959-09-13 Luna 2 USSR 💥 Impact or failure 0.00° / 29.10° The first human-made object to reach another world.
1966-02-03 Luna 9 USSR 🤖 Robotic landing -64.37° / 7.08° The first soft landing in history, and the first photographs from the lunar surface.
1966-06-02 Surveyor 1 USA 🤖 Robotic landing -43.34° / -2.47° The first American soft landing.
1969-07-20 Apollo 11 USA 👨‍🚀 Crewed landing 23.47° / 0.67° The first crewed landing on the Moon.
1969-11-19 Apollo 12 USA 👨‍🚀 Crewed landing -23.42° / -3.01° Pinpoint landing right beside Surveyor 3.
1970-09-24 Luna 16 USSR 🤖 Robotic landing 56.30° / -0.69° The first successful robotic sample return.
1970-11-17 Luna 17 USSR 🤖 Robotic landing -35.00° / 38.24° Carried Lunokhod 1, the first rover on the Moon.
1971-02-05 Apollo 14 USA 👨‍🚀 Crewed landing -17.47° / -3.65° Fra Mauro highlands.
1971-07-30 Apollo 15 USA 👨‍🚀 Crewed landing 3.63° / 26.13° The first lunar roving vehicle, at Hadley Rille.
1972-04-21 Apollo 16 USA 👨‍🚀 Crewed landing 15.50° / -8.97° The first landing in the highlands.
1972-12-11 Apollo 17 USA 👨‍🚀 Crewed landing 30.77° / 20.19° The last time humans stood on the Moon, so far.
1973-01-15 Luna 21 USSR 🤖 Robotic landing 30.45° / 25.85° Lunokhod 2, which drove 37 km.
1976-08-18 Luna 24 USSR 🤖 Robotic landing 62.21° / 12.71° The last Soviet lunar mission.
2013-12-14 Chang'e 3 China 🤖 Robotic landing -19.51° / 44.12° The first soft landing in 37 years, with the Yutu rover.
2019-01-03 Chang'e 4 China 🤖 Robotic landing 177.60° / -45.44° The first landing ever on the far side.
2019-04-11 Beresheet Israel 💥 Impact or failure 19.40° / 32.60° The first private attempt; it crashed just before landing.
2020-12-01 Chang'e 5 China 🤖 Robotic landing -51.92° / 43.06° The first sample return in 44 years.
2023-04-26 HAKUTO-R M1 Japan (ispace) 💥 Impact or failure 44.09° / 47.58° The first Japanese private attempt; it crashed during descent.
2023-08-23 Chandrayaan-3 India 🤖 Robotic landing 32.32° / -69.37° The closest landing to the south pole at the time.
2024-01-20 SLIM Japan (JAXA) 🤖 Robotic landing 25.25° / -13.32° Japan's first lunar landing, with pinpoint accuracy of about 100 m.
2024-02-22 IM-1 Odysseus USA (commercial) 🤖 Robotic landing 1.44° / -80.13° The first commercial soft landing, at 80° south.
2024-06-01 Chang'e 6 China 🤖 Robotic landing -153.99° / -41.64° The first sample return from the far side.
2025-03-02 Blue Ghost M1 USA (commercial) 🤖 Robotic landing 61.81° / 18.56° The most complete landing operation by a commercial mission.
2025-06-06 RESILIENCE Japan (ispace) 💥 Impact or failure -4.60° / 60.44° The second Japanese private lander; the landing failed.

The questions people ask

When was the first Moon landing?
Luna 2 struck the Moon on 13 September 1959 — the first human-made object to reach it, though it was an impact, not a landing. The first soft landing was Luna 9 on 3 February 1966. The first crewed landing was Apollo 11 on 20 July 1969.
How many times have people landed on the Moon?
6 crewed landings, all Apollo, between 1969 and 1972. Twelve people have walked on the surface. Nobody has been back since Apollo 17 left in December 1972.
Has Japan landed on the Moon?
Yes. JAXA's SLIM touched down on 20 January 2024 and became the fifth nation to land softly, landing within about 100 m of its target — the most precise lunar landing to date. Two ispace missions, HAKUTO-R M1 (2023) and RESILIENCE (2025), reached the surface but did not survive the descent.
Was the Moon landing real?
Yes. The landing sites are visible in orbital photography from several countries' spacecraft, and the retroreflectors left by Apollo 11, 14 and 15 are still used today: observatories on Earth bounce lasers off them and measure the distance to the Moon to within centimetres. That measurement has continued for over fifty years and cannot be faked.
Where do these coordinates come from?
The published positions from each mission's own agency. Some early Soviet landings are known only approximately, and we do not sharpen them to look more certain than they are.

Stand on them

Terrain: NASA LRO LOLA laser altimetry (CC0), tiled by KUON GEO from the original data. Landing positions: published by NASA/JPL-Caltech, ESA, IKI, CNSA, ISRO, JAXA, ispace and Intuitive Machines; some early positions are estimates.