Rocket launch sites and numbers of rockets launched

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Rocket launch sites are also known as cosmodromes and spaceports. The term rocket launch site is used for any structure from which rockets are launched. In the history of space exploration, 78 spaceports have been built in the world. Forty-four of them is still used for launching space rockets.

The first rockets to reach space was launched from the rocket launch site in Peenemünde (Germany) in 1944.

The Soviet rocket launch site Baikonur achieved the first orbital flight in 1957 and the first human launch into space in 1961. Baikonur cosmodrome is still often operated by Russia.

The U.S. built up a significant spaceport complex at Cape Canaveral in Florida due to the early USSR successes.

The primary European rocket launch site is located in Kourou (French Guiana).