The long-term and solar cycle variation of geomagnetic activity since the beginning of the century is examined. It is demonstrated that the daily average of the horizontal magnetic perturbation of a single middle- to low-latitude observatory is highly correlated with the daily average Dst. Using three such observatories, we construct an almost unbroken time series of daily values of the ring current activity from 1902--1986, denoted Hm. Comparing Hm with aa, we find that the gross features of the century scale variations of aa and Hm are similar: the ring current activity has increased significantly since the beginning of the century. Examining the solar cycle variation of Hm and aa, we find significant differences. Hm is better correlated with the sunspot number and is relatively larger in the beginning of the solar cycle, while aa is relatively larger in the late descending phase. Hm reveals a dual-peak structure with two peaks close to solar maximum. We suggest that geomagnetic activity during the solar cycle can be divided into three peaks. The first peak occurs shortly before sunspot maximum and is seen with largest amplitude in the ring current activity. The second peak occurs about 2 years after sunspot maximum and is statistically the largest peak. The third peak occurs late in the descending phase of the solar cycle and is seen with larger amplitude in substorm activity than in ring current activity. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1996