List of Known Vaults
| Los Angeles Vault | A Vault-Tec demonstration vault. It was not part of the experiment, and was the Master's vault under the Cathedral in Fallout. | Los Angeles (Cathedral), Southern California | Fallout |
| Unfinished Vault | A fenced construction area in a small cave north of Vaults 13 and 15. It may have been the first location of Vault 13 before its relocation. | Northern California | Fallout 2 |
| Vault-Tec: Among the Stars | A Vault-Tec demonstration vault, located in the Galactic Zone of Nuka-World. It tested a few things on the visitors: brainwave disruption, subliminal suggestion, airborne toxins, and theta-band radiation. These tests were performed not only on the subjects, but on the people working there as well. When the bombs dropped, one of the employees, R. Langston, ran inside to shut the vault doors (which do open and close correctly, but may or may not have been able to withstand the explosion). After this occurred, another employee, C. Grunner, driven mad by the experiments, shot Langston and himself. | Galactic Zone, Nuka-World | Nuka-World |
| Vault 3 | A control vault designed to open after 20 years, but kept closed longer due to the wishes of the vault inhabitants. However, an unplanned water leak forced the occupants to open in hopes of trading with the outside. Unfortunately, all of the vault's residents were massacred by a group of raiders known as the Fiends shortly after they opened the vault door. | West of Las Vegas, Nevada | Fallout: New Vegas |
| Vault 8 | A control vault, intended to open and recolonize the surface after 10 years and is equipped with a GECK. Vault City is the result. | Northern Nevada (Vault City) | Fallout 2 |
| Vault 11 | This vault was a social experiment testing human nature, most specifically the ability to sacrifice oneself for others, and the ability to place ideals above one's own life. After the vault doors were closed, it was revealed to the residents that they were required to sacrifice one person each year. Eventually, an overseer made the selection process random instead of a vote and a huge riot ensued. The survivors decided to face the punishment of not selecting a person to sacrifice: death. However, they were merely congratulated for not killing anybody. All except one person committed suicide. | Southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada | Fallout: New Vegas |
| Vault 12 | In order to study the effects of radiation on the selected population, the vault door was designed not to close properly. This is the Necropolis vault and a large population of ghouls was the result. | Bakersfield (Necropolis), California | Fallout |
| Vault 13 | Intended to stay closed for 200 years as a study of prolonged isolation, the broken water chip forced Overseer Jacoren to improvise and use the >Vault Dweller as a pawn. Later study of the Vault 13 records by the Enclave led them to their current plan to end the war. | Mt. Whitney, Southern California | Fallout Fallout 2 |
| Vault 15 | Intended to stay closed for 50 years and include people of radically diverse ideologies. Gathered from what Aradesh says in Fallout, he has quite a bit of multicultural flavoring to his speech. The birthplace of three raider groups and Shady Sands (later to become the NCR). | Southern California | Fallout Fallout 2 |
| Vault 17 | The vault was raided in 2154 and its inhabitants taken prisoner by the Master's Army. They were subsequently turned into super mutants. It is unknown what this vault's experiment was, or if it was one of the seventeen control vaults. | Unknown | Fallout: New Vegas (mentioned only) |
| Vault 19 | The vault was segregated into two groups, Red and Blue. The groups lived in separate sections of the vault and the inhabitants may have been chosen due to pre-existing paranoia. | Red Rock Canyon, Nevada | Fallout: New Vegas |
| Vault 21 | This vault's purpose was gambling, reinforced by having only compulsive gamblers admitted as vault residents and with all conflicts within the vault to be resolved through gambling. It is one of the few non-control vaults that didn't end in failure. When opened, its residents successfully integrated into the societies around them, and the lower levels of the vault were collapsed by Robert House. | Las Vegas, Nevada | Fallout: New Vegas |
| Vault 22 | Apparently a vault designed to develop advanced agricultural technologies. Successful experiments were executed, creating strains of plants that could grow under artificial light. However, an experiment on pest control involving a genetically-manufactured spore annihilated or transformed the vault's inhabitants. | West of Las Vegas, Nevada | Fallout: New Vegas |
| Vault 34 | The armory was overstocked with weapons and ammunition and not provided with a lock. The Boomers, the weapon-crazy inhabitants of Nellis Air Force Base, descend from the inhabitants of this vault. | East of Las Vegas, Nevada | Fallout Bible (first mentioned) Fallout: New Vegas |
| Vault 43 | Populated by twenty men, ten women, and one panther. | Unknown | Penny Arcade |
| Vault 51 | A ZAX unit controlled the Vault and was tasked with finding the perfect overseer among the 52 residents. Several attempts at democratic votes failed, and ZAX decided that unsuitable candidates needed to compete to the death in order for the best overseer to come out victorious. It influenced the Vault's residents to kill each other, leaving Reuben Gill as the overseer and only living resident. Overseer Gill escaped and sought help in destroying ZAX, but died in the wilderness before he could do so. | Northwestern West Virginia | Fallout 76 |
| Vault 63 | Unknown. | South of Lewisburg, West Virginia | Fallout 76 |
| Vault 69 | As Vault 68's counterpart, the vault had one thousand people maximum and is populated by nine hundred and ninety nine women and one man. | Unknown | Fallout Bible (first mentioned) Penny Arcade Van Buren concept art and possibly in conversation with President Richardson. |
| Vault 75 | This vault's purpose was the refinement of human genetics. Excluding vault staff, all residents were under the age of 18 at the time of vault activation; parents were quietly separated from their children and later executed by vault security. The children were subjected to various methods of torture and harsh tests by vault staff, with the hope of making them capable of surviving the wastes. The experiment went well for several generations, but the archives were destroyed and most if not all of the progress made was lost. As of 2287, the vault is occupied by Gunners. | Malden, The Commonwealth | Fallout 4 |
| Vault 76 | This vault was designed as a control group for the vault experiment. Like Vault 3 and Vault 8, it was intended to open and re-colonize the surface after 20 years. Vault 76 was unveiled by Vault-Tec in 2076 in celebration of the United States' tercentenary. | The Forest, West Virginia | Fallout 3 (first mentioned) Fallout 4 (mentioned only) Fallout 76 |
| Vault 77 | Populated by one man and a crate full of puppets. The Lone Inhabitant of the vault went insane from lack of human contact and eventually abandoned the vault after "murdering" one of the puppets. | Unknown | Penny Arcade |
| Vault 79 | The Vault was used to store the gold from America's bullion depository at Fort Knox for future use in reconstruction efforts after the Great War. It was constructed in secret in collaboration with the Federal government. Soldiers from the U.S. military, such as Oliver Fields, staffed its entrance. In August 2103, a reactor maintenance accident transformed many of the Secret Service staff into ghouls, sending the remaining staff into hiding. | Northeastern West Virginia (Savage Divide, Appalachia) | Fallout 76 |
| Vault 81 | Intended to develop a single cure for all human diseases through testing on unaware human subjects. The vault had two sections: the residents lived in one section, while Vault-Tec scientists secretly observed them and worked in the other. Unexpectedly, the original overseer disabled the equipment the scientists were to use to expose the residents to diseases. As of 2287, the vault's residents are alive and well, and regularly trade with the outside world. | Boston, The Commonwealth | Fallout 4 |
| Vault 87 | A Forced Evolutionary Virus (F.E.V.) research and testing facility. The residents were exposed to the FEV in locked chambers where scientists would observe their changes. In two weeks, the subjects underwent changes that gave birth to super mutants and centaurs. | Capital Wasteland | Fallout 3 |
| Vault 88 | Intended to test various prototype devices with the aim of rolling them out to the rest of the vaults; this vault was never fully constructed; only the entrance and a few interior rooms were finished before the Great War began. With the assistance of the vault's intended overseer, Valery Barstow, the Sole Survivor can build this vault however they like, and run various experiments of their choosing on the dwellers. | Boston, The Commonwealth | Vault-Tec Workshop |
| Vault 92 | Populated largely by renowned musicians, this vault was a test bed for a white noise-based system for implanting combat-oriented posthypnotic suggestions. | Nearby Old Olney, Capital Wasteland | Fallout 3 |
| Vault 94 | The Vault was founded on the principles of faith, nonviolence, and communal life in harmony with nature. Residents were not required to belong to a collective faith; each person was free to walk their own path. Together with an abundance of resources, the goal was to confirm the thesis about the innate goodness of humanity. One year after the Great War, on October 23, 2078, the Vault reopened and Vault ambassadors were sent out into Appalachia under the direction of Pastor Gabriella Salavar. It became the victim of an attack by a group of suspicious wastelanders from Harpers Ferry, who blew up the Vault's G.E.C.K., creating what became known as the Mire. | North of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia | Fallout 76 |
| Vault 95 | Populated solely with drug addicts, with the exception of a single vault-tec employee undercover. The vault residents would elect an overseer regularly and hold therapy sessions as part of a rehab program. The rehab proved to be a success. Five years after the vault was sealed, a hidden stash of drugs was unlocked. Within a few days, all of the vault residents but one fell back into addiction or killed each other. As of 2287, the vault is occupied by Gunners. | The Commonwealth | Fallout 3 cut content (first mentioned) Fallout 4 |
| Vault 96 | Constructed by Vault-Tec as a genetic ark for ecosystem restoration, the Vault used an almost inexhaustible number of frozen embryos ready to be artificially gestated to full maturity. It also used automated keeper robots to protect them when they left the Vault. Embryos constituted a carefully chosen, fully complete ecosystem referred to as "core fauna," with enough material for 112 releases | South of Huntersville, West Virginia | Fallout 76 |
| Vault 101 | The vault was created to evaluate the performance of an omnipotent, dictatorial overseer in a closed community, adopting a policy of "isolationism." Supplied with equipment that was needed to function for many years, this vault was never intended to open to the outside world. | Capital Wasteland | Fallout 3 |
| Vault 106 | As an experiment, the overseer instructed the vault to be filled with colorless psychoactive drugs into the air filtration system exactly 10 days after the door was sealed. The drugs caused hallucinations which led to all of the vaul style="border: 1px solid black; padding: 2px;"t residents' insanity. | Capital Wasteland | Fallout Bible (first mentioned) Fallout 3 |
| Vault 108 | Intended to test conflicts in leadership, the vault's overseer was expected to die of cancer after 40 months. In addition, the vault had a power supply that was to malfunction after 240 months, an insufficient backup, an overstocked armory, and no entertainment tapes. The vault also housed a cloning lab and all (surviving) residents are clones of one man called Gary. | Capital Wasteland | Fallout 3 |
| Vault 111 | Tested the long-term effects of cryogenic suspension on unaware individuals. The vault's staff were assigned to observe the residents and protect the vault for 180 days. Dwindling supplies drove the security personnel to mutiny against the scientists and leave. Over a century after activation, a mercenary broke into the vault in order to kidnap an infant resident. In the process, he killed all but one of the vault's frozen residents. | Sanctuary Hills, The Commonwealth | Fallout 4 |
| Vault 112 | All residents were placed in suspended animation and connected to a virtual reality simulator, where they thought they would live a "perfect" virtual life indefinitely. Unfortunately, Dr. Stanislaus Braun held absolute control of the simulation and used it to torture the residents for his own pleasure. | Capital Wasteland | Fallout 3 |
| Vault 114 | Intended to test the stress of living in impoverished, disenfranchised conditions by those previously accustomed to extreme wealth and power. Residents were to be exclusively politicians and Boston's wealthy elite, with the exception of the overseer. Construction was never completed. As of 2287, the vault is occupied by Triggermen. | Boston, The Commonwealth | Fallout 4 |
| Vault 118 | The vault was intended to encompass two wings under one overseer, each one to house exclusively members of the highest class of society (Hollywood actors, business tycoons, scientists, artists, etc.) or the lower classes. The second wing was never finished and while the vault was used as a fallout shelter, the vault experiment never started. | Mount Desert Island, Maine | Far Harbor |
Semi-canon and Non-canon Vaults [?]
| Burkittsville Vault | An unnamed vault near Burkittsville mentioned in the Hamilton's hideaway terminal entries. Outside of the vault, cannibals wait to ambush those seeking refuge in the vault. | Burkittsville, Maryland | Fallout 3 cut content |
| Secret Vault | A secret vault dedicated to protect high-members of Vault-Tec and used to research the latest technologies (like electrical laser weapons and instant regeneration) and the Forced Evolutionary Virus. | Los Ybanez, Texas | Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel |
| Vault prototype | A small Vault-Tec facility used as the base of operations by the Brotherhood of Steel | Texas | Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel |
| Vault 0 | A special vault designed to "monitor and control" other vaults, maintain the geniuses of the pre-War United States in cryogenic stasis and improve the future wasteland conditions with a robot army. | Cheyenne Mountain (Colorado) | Fallout Tactics |
| Vault 1 | An unnamed vault that a US Army soldier named Corporal Armstrong escorts the player character to, with Frank the Underseer running the facility until the overseer arrives. | Great Midwest Commonwealth | Van Buren Tech Demo |
| Vault 6 | The vault's original purpose in the Vault Experiment was that it allowed small doses of radiation to leak into the vault once a day, resulting in the population turning into an aggressive pack of extremely irradiated feral ghouls. | Mount St. Helens, Washington | Fallout Extreme |
| Vault 24 | Unknown, any information in existence is based on cut content for a vault suit. | Unknown (Mojave Wasteland?) | Fallout: New Vegas cut content |
| Vault 27 | This vault would be overcrowded deliberately. 2000 people would be assigned to enter, double the total sustainable amount. | Unknown | Fallout Bible only |
| Vault 29 | No one in this vault was over the age of 15 when they entered. Parents were intentionally redirected to other vaults. Harold is believed to have come from this vault. | Colorado | Fallout Bible (first mentioned) Van Buren |
| Vault 36 | The food extruders were designed to produce only a thin, watery gruel. | Unknown | Fallout Bible only |
| Vault 39 | The original purpose of Vault 39 is unknown, but due to Mile Reese experimenting with the G.E.C.K., it became a jungle with hostile plant life, similar to Vault 22. | Abilene, Texas | Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel 2 |
| Vault 42 | No light bulbs of more than 40 watts were provided. | Unknown | Fallout Bible |
| Vault 53 | Most of the equipment was designed to break down every few months. While repairable, the breakdowns were intended to stress the inhabitants unduly. | Unknown | Fallout Bible and possibly on Vault-Tec east coast computers |
| Vault 55 | All entertainment tapes were removed. | Unknown | Fallout Bible only |
| Vault 56 | All entertainment tapes were removed except those of one particularly bad comic actor. Sociologists predicted failure before Vault 55. | Unknown | Fallout Bible only |
| Vault 68 | Of the one thousand people who entered, there was only one woman. | Unknown | Fallout Bible and possibly in conversation with President Richardson. |
| Vault 70 | All jumpsuit extruders fail after 6 months. Most of the inhabitants were Mormons. The city of New Canaan was founded by the vault dwellers after they left the vault. | Salt Lake City, Utah | Fallout Bible 0 Van Buren |
| Vault 74 | Unknown. In the tutorial, it is a very small vault consisting only of the overseer's office, atrium, clinic, and quarters (blocked). | Unknown (Capital Wasteland?) | Fallout 3 modding tutorial |
| Vault 84 | Elections held every year to exile one citizen for being a "traitor." | Capital Wasteland, Commonwealth, The Pitt, and/or Far Harbor | Fallout: The Board Game |
| Vault 100 | Unknown | Mentioned in Fallout 3 game files with an unused Vault 100 jumpsuit icon. | Fallout 3 |
| Vault 109 | The vault included very high end fashion and products from Mary May, Ticknor and Fields and Fallon's. It is currently irradiated for unknown reasons. | Capital Wasteland, Commonwealth, The Pitt, and/or Far Harbor | Fallout: The Board Game> |
| Vault 113 | Unknown | Mentioned in Fallout 4 game files and The Art of Fallout 4. | Fallout 4 cut content |
| Vault 117 | Unknown, shown on a map north of Jamaica Plain before being cut sometime during the development of Fallout 4. | The Commonwealth | Fallout 4 cut content The History of Bethesda Game Studios |
| Vault 120 | Unknown | Mentioned in Fallout 4's Creation Engine files for the cut quest 20 Leagues Under the Sea. | Fallout 4 cut content |
| Vault 121 | Unknown, shown on a map where Vault 95 exists in-game before being cut sometime during the development of Fallout 4. | The Commonwealth | Fallout 4 cut content The History of Bethesda Game Studios |
| Vault 000 - Vault 999 | The player has the role of overseer. With no vault experiment to speak of, all vaults act as control vaults and their fates are left in the hands of the player. These vaults function more like settlements than vaults. Residents of the post-war wasteland are welcome to move in and work. The overseer (player) has absolute power over his or her dwellers, being able to kick them out of the vault, pick their partner and even send them on Vault-Tec issued quests. | Player-created vaults | Fallout Shelter |
