This statistic shows the number of famine deaths per100,000 people worldwide from 1900 to 2010. In the 1920s, about 814 people per 100,000 of the global population died as a result of famine.

According to the Global Hunger Index 2024, which was adopted by the International Food Policy Research Institute, Somalia was the most affected by hunger and malnutrition, with an index of 44.1. Yemen and Chad followed behind. The World Hunger Index combines three indicators: undernourishment, child underweight, and child mortality. Sub-Saharan Africa most affected The index is dominated by countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. In the region, more than one fifth of the population is undernourished . In terms of individuals, however, South Asia has the highest number of undernourished people. Globally, there are 735 million people that are considered undernourished or starving. A lack of food is increasing in over 20 countries worldwide. Undernourishment worldwide The term malnutrition includes both undernutrition and overnutrition. Undernutrition occurs when an individual cannot maintain normal bodily functions such as growth, recovering from disease, and both learning and physical work. Some conditions such as diarrhea, malaria, and HIV/AIDS can all have a negative impact on undernutrition. Rural and agricultural communities can be especially susceptible to hunger during certain seasons. The annual hunger gap occurs when a family’s food supply may run out before the next season’s harvest is available and can result in malnutrition. Nevertheless, the prevalence of people worldwide that are undernourished has decreased over the last decades, from 18.7 percent in 1990-92 to 9.2 percent in 2022, but it has slightly increased since the outbreak of COVID-19. According to the Global Hunger Index, the reduction of global hunger has stagnated over the past decade.

Between 2016 and 2022, there were no deaths reported due to lack of food and water in India. However, in 2012, there were 217 deaths due to this reason, making it the highest fatality number since 2010.

The age-specific mortality rate of nutritional deficiencies at all ages in Canada declined to 0.7 deaths in 2023. Nevertheless, the last two years recorded a significantly higher age-specific mortality rate than the preceding years.

This statistic shows the number of deaths caused by starvation in Latin America in 2015 and 2016, measured in millions. Between the period of consideration, death of starvation increased in the region by more than six percent, from 40 million deaths in 2015 to 42.5 million deaths in 2016.

This statistic shows the ten countries with the most deaths resulting from earthquakes between 1900 and 2016. Total 876,487 people were killed due to earthquakes in China. Fatalities around the world The leading causes of death worldwide for humans in 2012 were ischaemic heart diseases, with 7.4 million deaths and strokes, with 6.7 million deaths. Apart from these diseases, there are many other dangers for humans all over the world, such as famine, drugs, epidemics or the everyday traffic.

The global famine death rate has decreased over the past decades, 814 people per 100,000 of the global population died as a result of famine, while the number of deaths due to famine was about 3 per 100,000 of the global population in 2000. Famine is a scarcity of food, which can be caused by crop failure, population unbalance or drought. Between 1900 and 2014, the number of deaths due to droughts stood at 3,000,000 in China.

Compared to other countries, the Unites States are ranked as the country with the highest amount of drug-related deaths around the world. 40,393 people passed away due to drugs in 2012, while only 944 drug-related deaths were reported in Germany.

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is one of the largest outbreaks in history and costs the life of many people. The Ebola virus disease has a high risk of deaths, as of August 26, 2014 there have been 3,069 cases, resulting 1,552 deaths due to outbreak in West Africa.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 162 annual traffic fatalities per 100,000 registered vehicles were counted in South Africa, which is the country with the highest number of road-traffic fatalities from 2006 – 2008. Germany is on of the country with the lowest annual traffic fatalities, there were only 9 traffic fatalities per 100,000 registered vehicles.

Estimates for the total death count of the Second World War generally range somewhere between 70 and 85 million people. The Soviet Union suffered the highest number of fatalities of any single nation, with estimates mostly falling between 22 and 27 million deaths. China then suffered the second greatest, at around 20 million, although these figures are less certain and often overlap with the Chinese Civil War. Over 80 percent of all deaths were of those from Allied countries, and the majority of these were civilians. In contrast, 15 to 20 percent were among the Axis powers, and the majority of these were military deaths, as shown in the death ratios of Germany and Japan. Civilian deaths and atrocities It is believed that 60 to 67 percent of all deaths were civilian fatalities, largely resulting from war-related famine or disease, and war crimes or atrocities. Systematic genocide, extermination campaigns, and forced labor, particularly by the Germans, Japanese, and Soviets, led to the deaths of millions. In this regard, Nazi activities alone resulted in 17 million deaths, including six million Jews in what is now known as The Holocaust. Not only was the scale of the conflict larger than any that had come before, but the nature of and reasoning behind this loss make the Second World War stand out as one of the most devastating and cruelest conflicts in history. Problems with these statistics Although the war is considered by many to be the defining event of the 20th century, exact figures for death tolls have proven impossible to determine, for a variety of reasons. Countries such as the U.S. have fairly consistent estimates due to preserved military records and comparatively few civilian casualties, although figures still vary by source. For most of Europe, records are less accurate. Border fluctuations and the upheaval of the interwar period mean that pre-war records were already poor or non-existent for many regions. The rapid and chaotic nature of the war then meant that deaths could not be accurately recorded at the time, and mass displacement or forced relocation resulted in the deaths of many civilians outside of their homeland, which makes country-specific figures more difficult to find. Early estimates of the war’s fatalities were also taken at face value and formed the basis of many historical works; these were often very inaccurate, but the validity of the source means that the figures continue to be cited today, despite contrary evidence.

In comparison to Europe, estimate ranges are often greater across Asia, where populations were larger but pre-war data was in short supply. Many of the Asian countries with high death tolls were European colonies, and the actions of authorities in the metropoles, such as the diversion of resources from Asia to Europe, led to millions of deaths through famine and disease. Additionally, over one million African soldiers were drafted into Europe’s armies during the war, yet individual statistics are unavailable for most of these colonies or successor states (notably Algeria and Libya). Thousands of Asian and African military deaths went unrecorded or are included with European or Japanese figures, and there are no reliable figures for deaths of millions from countries across North Africa or East Asia. Additionally, many concentration camp records were destroyed, and such records in Africa and Asia were even sparser than in Europe. While the Second World War is one of the most studied academic topics of the past century, it is unlikely that we will ever have a clear number for the lives lost in the conflict.

According to the Global Hunger Index, India had an index value of 28.7 in 2023. The composition of the index was a combination of different indicators such as undernourishment, child underweight, and child mortality. India's score indicates a serious level of hunger crisis, placing the country at a position of 111th out of 121 countries that year. However, the country had improved the situation from 35 index points falling in the category of alarming level in 2000.

According to the Global Hunger Index 2024, hunger worldwide decreased since 2000, but the pace of the reduction has slowed since 2016. In the Middle East and North Africa, for instance, the hunger index value was the same in 2024 as in 2016, and it had even increased marginally in Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2024, Somalia had the highest index score worldwide, meaning it was the country where hunger was most prevalent. The World Hunger Index combines four indicators: undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting, and child mortality.

In 2023, the rate of undernourishment worldwide was 9.1 percent. The region with the largest share of undernourished people was Sub-Saharan Africa, with 23.2 percent. Undernourished people worldwideSouthern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have some of the highest numbers of undernourished people in the world, totaling 281 million and 278 million, respectively in 2023. Based on the World Hunger Index 2024, Somalia and Yemen were among the most affected countries by hunger and malnutrition. Worldwide, about 733.4 million people were suffering from malnutrition in 2023. MalnutritionMalnourishment occurs when a person’s diet consists of too little or too much of certain nutrients. Undernutrition occurs when a person does not intake enough calories, protein, or micronutrients. One of the primary causes of malnutrition is due to limited or lack of accessibility to affordable nutritious foods. Malnutrition is considered to contribute to over a third of child deaths globally. In Asia, an estimated 77 million cases of stunting, which is the primary effect of malnutrition, were recorded for children under the age of five in 2022. The FAO reports that food security and nutrition commitments by national governments are essential in eradicating the world hunger problem. Agricultural productivity, accessibility to land, services, and markets, rural development strategies, and social protection are needed to ensure a reduction in malnutrition.

The First World War saw the mobilization of more than 65 million soldiers, and the deaths of almost 15 million soldiers and civilians combined. Approximately 8.8 million of these deaths were of military personnel, while six million civilians died as a direct result of the war; mostly through hunger, disease and genocide. The German army suffered the highest number of military losses, totaling at more than two million men. Turkey had the highest civilian death count, largely due to the mass extermination of Armenians, as well as Greeks and Assyrians. Varying estimates suggest that Russia may have suffered the highest number of military and total fatalities in the First World War. However, this is complicated by the subsequent Russian Civil War and Russia's total specific to the First World War remains unclear to this day.

Proportional deaths In 1914, Central and Eastern Europe was largely divided between the empires of Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia, while the smaller Balkan states had only emerged in prior decades with the decline of the Ottoman Empire. For these reasons, the major powers in the east were able to mobilize millions of men from across their territories, as Britain and France did with their own overseas colonies, and were able to utilize their superior manpower to rotate and replace soldiers, whereas smaller nations did not have this luxury. For example, total military losses for Romania and Serbia are around 12 percent of Germany's total military losses; however, as a share of their total mobilized forces these countries lost roughly 33 percent of their armies, compared to Germany's 15 percent mortality rate. The average mortality rate of all deployed soldiers in the war was around 14 percent.

Unclarity in the totals Despite ending over a century ago, the total number of deaths resulting from the First World War remains unclear. The impact of the Influenza pandemic of 1918, as well as various classifications of when or why fatalities occurred, has resulted in varying totals with differences ranging in the millions. Parallel conflicts, particularly the Russian Civil War, have also made it extremely difficult to define which conflicts the fatalities should be attributed to. Since 2012, the totals given by Hirschfeld et al in Brill's Encyclopedia of the First World War have been viewed by many in the historical community as the most reliable figures on the subject.

Recent years have seen an increase in the amount of people suffering from undernourishment around the world. This is a reversal of the trend which had seen declining numbers till 2014. In 2023, almost 734 million people were undernourished around the world. Undernourishment is defined as the status of persons, whose food intake regularly provides less than their minimum energy requirements.

The infant mortality rate in China, for children under the age of one year old, was approximately 195 deaths per thousand births in 1950. This means that for all babies born in 1950, almost one in five did not survive past their first birthday. This rate fell to just under 130 deaths in 1955, before increasing slightly in the next decade, as Chairman Mao Zedong's 'Great Leap Forward' failed to industrialize the country and created a famine that killed millions of people. Over the past half century, China's infant mortality rate has decreased gradually to just ten deaths per thousand births today.

In 1900, the child mortality rate in the area of present-day North Korea was estimated to be almost five hundred deaths per thousand live births, meaning that approximately half of all children born at this time were not expected to survive past their fifth birthday. This rate would increase to 524 deaths per thousand births in the 1910s, before rapidly falling from the 1910s until the middle of the century (following the Japanese annexation of the peninsula in 1910). There was a slight increase in child mortality rates in the late 1940s, as the Korean peninsula was divided into two states; although it continued upon its rapid decline in the 1950s, with the decrease slowing in the next three decades.

This decline would continue steadily until the 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting cut-off of economic aid would cause child mortality to rise for a decade, and this was exacerbated by the flooding, drought, famine and economic mismanagement of the late 1990s. The past two decades, however, have seen child mortality fall once more, and in 2020, it is estimated that for every thousand children born in North Korea, over 98 percent will make it past the age of five.

By the early 1870s, the child mortality rate of the area of modern-day Bangladesh was estimated to be just over five hundred deaths per thousand live births, meaning that more than half of all infants born in these years would not survive past their fifth birthday. Child mortality would steadily climb towards the end of the 19th century, to a rate of almost 57 percent, as a series of famines would result in significant declines in access to nutrition and the increased displacement of the population. However, after peaking at just over 565 deaths per thousand births at the turn of the century, the British colonial administration partitioned the Bengal region (a large part of which lies in present-day India), which would begin to bring some bureaucratic stability to the region, improving healthcare and sanitation.

Child mortality would largely decline throughout the 20th century, with two temporary reversals in the late 1940s and early 1970s. The first of these can be attributed in part to disruptions in government services and mass displacement of the country’s population in the partitioning of India and Pakistan following their independence from the British Empire; during which time, present-day Bangladesh became East Pakistan. The second reversal would occur in the early 1970s, as a side effect for the Bangladesh Liberation War, the famine of 1974, and the subsequent transition to independence. Outside of these reversals, child mortality would decline significantly in the 20th century, and by the turn of the century, child mortality in Bangladesh would fall below one hundred deaths per thousand births; less than a fifth of the rate at the beginning of the century. In the past two decades, Bangladesh's child mortality has continued its decline to roughly a third of this rate, due to improvements in healthcare access and quality in the country; in 2020, it was estimated that for every thousand children born in Bangladesh, almost 97 percent will survive past the age of five years.

In 1955, the infant mortality rate in North Korea was estimated to be 121 deaths per thousand live births, meaning that for every thousand children born in North Korea in this year, one eighth would not survive past their first birthday. This figure was recorded during the five year period between 1951 and 1955, which was dominated by the effects of the Korean War; following the war's end and the period of adjustment that followed, North Korea's infant mortality rate fell significantly over the next four decades. However, following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent cut off of economic aid, infant mortality in North Korea more than doubled in the 1990s. Flooding, famine and drought, exacerbated by the governments inefficient response saw infant mortality rise to 58 deaths per thousand births by the late 1990s. This figure has dropped to just 14 deaths per thousand births since the turn of the millennium, although this rate is seven times higher than that of South Korea.

The Third Plague Epidemic began in the mid-1800s in Yunnan, China, (an area that is still a natural reservoir for the Yersinia pestis bacteria) and had a huge death toll across Asia in the next century. While plague was confined to the Yunnan region for some decades, the mass displacement and social upheaval caused by the Taiping Rebellion saw millions flee the area , bringing the disease to other parts of the country. A plague epidemic then emerged in British-controlled Hong Kong in 1894, where merchants then unknowingly transported infected rats to other parts of the empire along various trade routes. Arrival in Bombay The first Indian cases were reported in Bombay (present-day Mumbai), and the Bombay Presidency suffered more losses than any other region in India (although there were some individual years where the state of Punjab reported more deaths). As with most disease or famine outbreaks in the region, the British authorities were slow to react, and their eventual response was in many ways too late. In some cases authorities even facilitated the spread of the disease; with multiple accounts of the military forcing healthy people into quarantine camps, evicting and burning homes of the afflicted, or by using such excessive force that the public would refuse medical help. Spread in India Lack of understanding among the Indian public was also to their own detriment. Some religions in India forbid the killing of rats, while some people simply refused to acknowledge that they were sick. As the plague in Bombay spiraled out of control, many fled to other parts of the country, taking the plague with them. It is estimated that there were over one million deaths in India by 1902, and almost one million further deaths in 1903 alone. The first four months of 1904 also saw over half a million deaths, almost matching the entire total for 1902. Plague would remain endemic to India for the next few decades, and there are varying reports of up to 10 or 12 million total plague deaths in this time. The public health measures taken to combat the plague in the early 20th century would mark the beginnings of India's public health system, and some of the quarantine measures put in place by the colonial government were even used in 2020 during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Following the arrival of Spanish colonizers in 1519, namely Hernando Cortes and his 600 conquistadors, the indigenous population of the Mexican valley saw a dramatic decline. In the first two years of conquest, thousands of indigenous Americans perished while fighting the European invaders, including an estimated 100,000 who died of violence or starvation during Cortes' siege of the Aztec capital city, Tenochtitlan (present-day Mexico City), in 1520. However, the impact of European violence on population decline pales in comparison to the impact of Old World diseases, which saw the indigenous population of the region drop from roughly 22 million to less than two million within eight decades.. Virgin soil pandemics Almost immediately after the Spanish arrival, a wave of smallpox swept across the indigenous populations, with some estimates suggesting that five to eight million natives died in the subsequent pandemic between 1519 and 1520. This outbreak was not an isolated incident, with the entire indigenous population of the Americas dropping by roughly ninety percent in the next two centuries. The Mexican valley specifically, which was the most populous region of the pre-Columbian Americas, suffered greatly due to virgin soil pandemics (where new diseases are introduced to biologically defenseless populations). In the Middle Ages, the majority of Europeans contracted smallpox as children, which generally granted lifelong immunity. In contrast, indigenous Americans had never been exposed to these diseases, and their populations (of all ages) declined rapidly. Cocoliztli Roughly three decades after the smallpox pandemic, another pandemic swept across the valley, to a more devastating effect. This was an outbreak of cocoliztli, which almost wiped out the entire population, and was followed by a second pandemic three decades later. Until recently, historians were still unsure of the exact causes of cocoliztli, with most hypothesizing that it was a rodent-borne disease similar to plague or an extreme form of a haemorrhagic fever. In 2018, however, scientists in Jena, Germany, studied 29 sets of teeth from 16th century skeletons found in the Oaxaca region of Mexico (from a cemetery with known links to the 1545 pandemic); these tests concluded that cocoliztli was most likely an extreme and rare form of the salmonella bacterium, which caused paratyphoid fever. These pandemics coincided with some of the most extreme droughts ever recorded in North America, which exacerbates the spread and symptoms of this disease, and the symptoms described in historical texts give further credence to the claim that cocoliztli was caused by salmonella.

The 20th century marked a new trend in the recording of war fatalities, where more attention was given to the impact of conflicts on civilian populations, and not just the military. During the Second World War, the extent of the atrocities committed, the large-scale bombing campaigns, and the various famines resulting from the war meant that the scope of the civilian death toll took place was unprecedented - the likes of which had never been seen before, or since. Almost two thirds of all deaths due to the Second World War were of civilians, yet the ratio of military to civilian deaths varied greatly by country. Many British dominions and the United States suffered little to no civilian deaths as they were not located in an active theater of war - civilian fatalities largely came from naval or aerial attacks (such as at Pearl Harbor). In contrast, there were several European colonies in the Asia-Pacific region where all, or at least 95 percent, of total fatalities were among civilians - some of these regions suffered millions of deaths due to famine and atrocities.

Global life expactancy at birth has risen significantly since the mid-1900s, from roughly 46 years in 1950 to 73.5 years in 2025. Post-COVID-19 projections There was a drop of 1.7 years during the COVID-19 pandemic, between 2019 and 2021, however figures resumed upon their previous trajectory the following year due to the implementation of vaccination campaigns and the lower severity of later strains of the virus. By the end of the century it is believed that global life expectancy from birth will reach 82 years, although growth will slow in the coming decades as many of the more-populous Asian countries reach demographic maturity. However, there is still expected to be a wide gap between various regions at the end of the 2100s, with the Europe and North America expected to have life expectancies around 90 years, whereas Sub-Saharan Africa is predicted to be in the low-70s. The Great Leap Forward While a decrease of one year during the COVID-19 pandemic may appear insignificant, this is the largest decline in life expectancy since the "Great Leap Forward" in China in 1958, which caused global life expectancy to fall by almost four years between by 1960. The "Great Leap Forward" was a series of modernizing reforms, which sought to rapidly transition China's agrarian economy into an industrial economy, but mismanagement led to tens of millions of deaths through famine and disease.