What is the world's largest meteorite impact crater?

The world’s largest meteorite impact crater is commonly identified as Vredefort Crater, the eroded impact structure in South Africa. Its original impact basin is estimated to have measured roughly 170 to 300 kilometers across.

The structure formed about 2.023 billion years ago when a huge asteroid struck what is now South Africa’s Free State province. The impact intensely deformed the underlying rocks and created a central uplift known as the Vredefort Dome. Billions of years of erosion removed much of the original crater, so today visitors see a partial geological structure rather than a pristine bowl-shaped depression.

Vredefort is also one of Earth’s oldest confirmed impact structures and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005. A frequent source of confusion is Chicxulub in Mexico, the impact site linked to the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs. Chicxulub is the largest mostly intact impact crater, while Vredefort is generally considered Earth’s largest verified impact structure by its original extent. Sudbury in Canada is another enormous, ancient impact structure, but it is smaller.