The variety of tectonic features on the Moon indicates that the lunar lithosphere has undergone a complex deformational history. Lobate scarps and wrinkle ridges are two such tectonic features that have resulted from compressional stresses. The crisp morphologies and cross cutting relations associated with a global population of lobate scarps have been cited as evidence for their recent (<50 Ma) formation, but observations of recently active wrinkle ridges have yet to be made on a similar scale. Here, we present new observations of 1,127 recently active wrinkle ridge segments on the lunar nearside mare. Our results indicate that recently active wrinkle ridges are distributed across ~90% of nearside mare basins – occurring in clusters of ~10–100 ridge segments with a mean segment length of 4.4 km. The magnitudes and orientations of these recently active wrinkle ridges are consistent with the hypothesis of formation by orbital recession stresses.