We studied the Carrington longitudinal and solar cycle distribution of the super active regions (SARs) from 1976
to 2018. There were 51 SARs during this period. We divided the SARs into SARs1 and SARs2. SARs1 refers to
the SARs that produced extreme space weather events including ≥X5.0 flares, ground level events (GLEs) and
super geomagnetic storms (SGSs: Dst≤ −250 nT), while SARs2 did not produce extreme space weather events.
The total number of SARs1 and SARs2 are 32 and 19, respectively. The statistical results show that 34.4%, 65.6%
and 78.1% of the SARs1 appeared in the ascending phase, descending phase and in the period from two years
before to the three years after the solar maximum, respectively, while 52.6%, 47.4% and 100% of the SARs2
appeared in the ascending phase, descending phase and in the period from two years before to the three years after
solar maximum, respectively. The Carrington longitude distribution of the SARs1 shows that SARs1 in the
longitudinal scope of [0,150°] produced ≥X5.0 flares and GLEs, while only the SARs1 in the longitude range of
[150°,360°] not only produced ≥X5.0 flares and GLEs, but also produced SGSs. The total number of SARs
during a SC has a good correlation with the SC size. However, the largest flare index of a SAR within a SC has a
poor correlation with the SC size, implying that the number of SARs in a weak SC will be small. However, a
weak SC may have a SAR that can produce very strong solar flare activities.