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A nuclear weapon is a weapon that derives its energy from the nuclear reactions of fission and/or fusion. Even the smallest nuclear weapons are more powerful than all but the largest of conventional explosives. A ten-megaton weapon can destroy an entire city. A hundred-megaton weapon (although judged impractical) would set wooden houses and forests afire in a circle 60-100 miles (100-160 km) in diameter¹. Nuclear weapons have been delivered only twice in the history of warfare – both in the ending days of World War II; the first such bombing was on the morning of 6 August 1945, when the United States dropped a uranium gun-type device code-named "Little Boy" on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and the last nuclear bombing occurred three days later; this second bomb was a plutonium implosion-type device code- named "Fat Man", dropped on the city of Nagasaki.

Testing accounts for the rest of more than two thousand nuclear detonations, chiefly by the following seven nations: the U.S., Soviet Union, France, United Kingdom, China, India and Pakistan.

The declared nuclear powers are the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, the People's Republic of China, India, and Pakistan. In addition, Israel has both modern aerial delivery systems and there is evidence of an extensive nuclear program, though such has never been publicly admitted (see: Israel and weapons of mass destruction). North Korea has stated recently that it has nuclear capabilities; Ukraine may possess an obsolete Soviet nuclear stockpile due to a post-Cold War clerical error. Iran and others may be attempting to develop indigenous nuclear capabilities. See the list of countries with nuclear weapons for more details
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