Explore detailed global homicide data with this extensive dataset, covering various aspects of intentional homicides. Compiled from multiple reliable sources, including UNODC and WHO, this dataset includes:

• Child homicide rates per 100,000 population
• Distribution of homicide rates
• Female homicide rates and victims
• Age-standardized homicide rates
• Historical homicide rates across Western Europe
• Overall homicide rates and victims

This dataset provides valuable insights for researchers, policymakers, and data scientists interested in crime analysis, public health, and social studies. Analyze trends, identify patterns, and develop predictive models to understand and mitigate the impact of homicides worldwide.

The average for 2017 based on 97 countries was 7.4 homicides per 100,000 people. The highest value was in El Salvador: 61.8 homicides per 100,000 people and the lowest value was in Japan: 0.2 homicides per 100,000 people. The indicator is available from 1990 to 2017. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Turks and Caicos Islands saw a murder rate of ***** per 100,000 inhabitants, making it the most dangerous country for this kind of crime worldwide as of 2024. Interestingly, El Salvador, which long had the highest global homicide rates, has dropped out of the top 29 after a high number of gang members have been incarcerated. Meanwhile, Colima in Mexico was the most dangerous city for murders. Violent conflicts worldwide Notably, these figures do not include deaths that resulted from war or a violent conflict. While there is a persistent number of conflicts worldwide, resulting casualties are not considered murders. Partially due to this reason, homicide rates in Latin America are higher than those in Afghanistan or Syria. A different definition of murder in these circumstances could change the rate significantly in some countries. Causes of death Also, noteworthy is that murders are usually not random events. In the United States, the circumstances of murders are most commonly arguments, followed by narcotics incidents and robberies. Additionally, murders are not a leading cause of death. Heart diseases, strokes and cancer pose a greater threat to life than violent crime.

The United States had, by far, the highest homicide rate of the G7 countries between 2000 and 2023. In 2023, it reached 5.76 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, a decrease from 6.78 in 2021. By comparison, Canada, the G7 nation with the second-highest homicide rate, had 1.98 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023. Out of each G7 nation, Japan had the lowest rate with 0.23 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.

In 2025, Pietermaritzburg in South Africa ranked as the world's most dangerous city with a crime rate of 82 per 100,000 inhabitants. Five of the 10 cities with the highest crime rates worldwide are found in South Africa. The list does not include countries where war and conflict exist. South Africa dominates crime statistics When looking at crime rates, among the 10 most dangerous cities in the world, half of them are found in South Africa. The country is struggling with extremely high levels of inequality, and is struggling with high levels of crime and power outages, harming the country's economy and driving more people into unemployment and poverty. Crime in Latin America On the other hand, when looking at murder rates, Latin America dominates the list of the world's most dangerous countries. Violence in Latin America is caused in great part by drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, and gang wars.

Measuring homicides across the world helps us understand violent crime and how people are affected by interpersonal violence.

But measuring homicides is challenging. Even homicide researchers do not always agree on whether the specific cause of death should be considered a homicide. Even when they agree on what counts as a homicide, it is difficult to count all of them.

In many countries, national civil registries do not certify most deaths or their cause. Besides lacking funds and personnel, a body has to be found to determine whether a death has happened. Authorities may also struggle to distinguish a homicide from a similar cause of death, such as an accident.

Law enforcement and criminal justice agencies collect more data on whether a death was unlawful — but their definition of unlawfulness may differ across countries and time.

Estimating homicides where neither of these sources is available or good enough is difficult. Estimates rely on inferences from similar countries and contextual factors that are based on strong assumptions. So how do researchers address these challenges and measure homicides?

In our work on homicides, we provide data from five main sources:

The WHO Mortality Database (WHO-MD)1 The Global Study on Homicide by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)2 The History of Homicide Database by Manuel Eisner (20033 and 20144) The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)5 The WHO Global Health Estimates (WHO-GHE)6 These sources all report homicides, cover many countries and years, and are frequently used by researchers and policymakers. They are not entirely separate, as they partially build upon each other.

United States US: Intentional Homicides: Female: per 100,000 Female data was reported at 2.261 Ratio in 2016. This records an increase from the previous number of 2.062 Ratio for 2015. United States US: Intentional Homicides: Female: per 100,000 Female data is updated yearly, averaging 2.337 Ratio from Dec 2000 (Median) to 2016, with 17 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 3.086 Ratio in 2001 and a record low of 1.983 Ratio in 2014. United States US: Intentional Homicides: Female: per 100,000 Female data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s USA – Table US.World Bank: Health Statistics. Intentional homicides, female are estimates of unlawful female homicides purposely inflicted as a result of domestic disputes, interpersonal violence, violent conflicts over land resources, intergang violence over turf or control, and predatory violence and killing by armed groups. Intentional homicide does not include all intentional killing; the difference is usually in the organization of the killing. Individuals or small groups usually commit homicide, whereas killing in armed conflict is usually committed by fairly cohesive groups of up to several hundred members and is thus usually excluded.; ; UN Office on Drugs and Crime's International Homicide Statistics database.; ;

The average for 2017 based on 35 countries was 1.7 homicides per 100,000 people. The highest value was in Russia: 9.2 homicides per 100,000 people and the lowest value was in Luxembourg: 0.3 homicides per 100,000 people. The indicator is available from 1990 to 2017. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Chad TD: Intentional Homicides: per 100,000 People data was reported at 9.040 Ratio in 2015. This records a decrease from the previous number of 9.684 Ratio for 2010. Chad TD: Intentional Homicides: per 100,000 People data is updated yearly, averaging 10.201 Ratio from Dec 2000 (Median) to 2015, with 4 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 11.378 Ratio in 2000 and a record low of 9.040 Ratio in 2015. Chad TD: Intentional Homicides: per 100,000 People data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Chad – Table TD.World Bank.WDI: Social: Health Statistics. Intentional homicides are estimates of unlawful homicides purposely inflicted as a result of domestic disputes, interpersonal violence, violent conflicts over land resources, intergang violence over turf or control, and predatory violence and killing by armed groups. Intentional homicide does not include all intentional killing; the difference is usually in the organization of the killing. Individuals or small groups usually commit homicide, whereas killing in armed conflict is usually committed by fairly cohesive groups of up to several hundred members and is thus usually excluded.;UN Office on Drugs and Crime's International Homicide Statistics database.;Weighted average;

Sudan SD: Intentional Homicides: per 100,000 People data was reported at 6.500 Ratio in 2015. This records a decrease from the previous number of 6.800 Ratio for 2010. Sudan SD: Intentional Homicides: per 100,000 People data is updated yearly, averaging 6.800 Ratio from Dec 2005 (Median) to 2015, with 3 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 7.500 Ratio in 2005 and a record low of 6.500 Ratio in 2015. Sudan SD: Intentional Homicides: per 100,000 People data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Sudan – Table SD.World Bank: Health Statistics. Intentional homicides are estimates of unlawful homicides purposely inflicted as a result of domestic disputes, interpersonal violence, violent conflicts over land resources, intergang violence over turf or control, and predatory violence and killing by armed groups. Intentional homicide does not include all intentional killing; the difference is usually in the organization of the killing. Individuals or small groups usually commit homicide, whereas killing in armed conflict is usually committed by fairly cohesive groups of up to several hundred members and is thus usually excluded.; ; UN Office on Drugs and Crime's International Homicide Statistics database.; Weighted average;

Brazil BR: Intentional Homicides: per 100,000 People data was reported at 22.384 Ratio in 2020. This records an increase from the previous number of 20.810 Ratio for 2019. Brazil BR: Intentional Homicides: per 100,000 People data is updated yearly, averaging 26.021 Ratio from Dec 1990 (Median) to 2020, with 31 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 30.593 Ratio in 2017 and a record low of 16.656 Ratio in 1992. Brazil BR: Intentional Homicides: per 100,000 People data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Brazil – Table BR.World Bank.WDI: Social: Health Statistics. Intentional homicides are estimates of unlawful homicides purposely inflicted as a result of domestic disputes, interpersonal violence, violent conflicts over land resources, intergang violence over turf or control, and predatory violence and killing by armed groups. Intentional homicide does not include all intentional killing; the difference is usually in the organization of the killing. Individuals or small groups usually commit homicide, whereas killing in armed conflict is usually committed by fairly cohesive groups of up to several hundred members and is thus usually excluded.;UN Office on Drugs and Crime's International Homicide Statistics database.;Weighted average;

The average for 2017 based on 3 countries was 3 homicides per 100,000 people. The highest value was in the Philippines: 8.4 homicides per 100,000 people and the lowest value was in Singapore: 0.2 homicides per 100,000 people. The indicator is available from 1990 to 2017. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

The statistic above provides information about worldwide homicide rates, sorted by gender and region. In 2012, the global average male homicide rate stood at *** per 100,000 population.

Historical dataset showing World murder/homicide rate per 100K population by year from 2000 to 2020.

This dataset contains official statistics on homicide at national and regional levels. Some series included in the dataset contain sex disaggregated data.

This dataset contains information about homicide rates across 195 countries around the world. It provides data on the region, subregion, homicide rate (per 100,000 people), total homicide count, and the year of record.

You can use this dataset for data analysis, visualization, or machine learning projects to understand global crime patterns and safety levels.

BackgroundSince 1990, the world’s homicide rate has declined by nearly 20%. While prior research has documented parallel homicide declines across many individual countries, the causes of a shared international homicide decline remain unknown. Drawing on a worldwide process of population ageing, and on research linking age to criminal activity, this study investigates the contribution of global demographic shifts to the international homicide decline.MethodsWe draw from (1) a High Coverage Sample of 126 countries since 1990, and (2) a Long Series Sample of 26 countries since 1960 and utilize fixed-effect regressions to evaluate the impact of age structure on homicide trends. In addition, we use a quantile regression to explore variations in the relationship between age structure and homicide conditional on homicide levels.FindingsResults using the High Coverage Sample suggest no relationship between age structure and homicide. However, results from the Long Series Sample suggest that changes in the relative size of countries’ youth population is a major predictor of homicide trends since 1960. In exploring this divergence, we find that the influence of age structure on homicide becomes less evident as other risk factors for violence gain prominence. Thus, while high homicide countries had the most to gain from falling homicide rates, the safety benefits of an ageing population have been concentrated among the least violent countries.InterpretationWhile the homicide declines of individual countries have often been attributed to domestic policies, the universality of international homicide trends suggests the influence of broader global phenomenon. We find that countries’ homicide trends are strongly associated with changes in the size of their youth populations, particularly where there are few competing criminogenic forces. Based on these results, we propose an explanation for the international homicide decline, while highlighting the importance of demographic patterns in explaining homicide trends.

China: Homicides per 100,000 people: The latest value from 2017 is 0.6 homicides per 100,000 people, unchanged from 0.6 homicides per 100,000 people in 2016. In comparison, the world average is 7.4 homicides per 100,000 people, based on data from 97 countries. Historically, the average for China from 1995 to 2017 is 1.4 homicides per 100,000 people. The minimum value, 0.6 homicides per 100,000 people, was reached in 2016 while the maximum of 2.2 homicides per 100,000 people was recorded in 1995.

Egypt EG: Intentional Homicides: Male: per 100,000 Male data was reported at 4.385 Ratio in 2012. This records a decrease from the previous number of 5.468 Ratio for 2011. Egypt EG: Intentional Homicides: Male: per 100,000 Male data is updated yearly, averaging 1.727 Ratio from Dec 2004 (Median) to 2012, with 9 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 5.468 Ratio in 2011 and a record low of 0.711 Ratio in 2004. Egypt EG: Intentional Homicides: Male: per 100,000 Male data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Egypt – Table EG.World Bank: Health Statistics. Intentional homicides, male are estimates of unlawful male homicides purposely inflicted as a result of domestic disputes, interpersonal violence, violent conflicts over land resources, intergang violence over turf or control, and predatory violence and killing by armed groups. Intentional homicide does not include all intentional killing; the difference is usually in the organization of the killing. Individuals or small groups usually commit homicide, whereas killing in armed conflict is usually committed by fairly cohesive groups of up to several hundred members and is thus usually excluded.; ; UN Office on Drugs and Crime's International Homicide Statistics database.; ;

The average for 2017 based on 10 countries was 7.1 homicides per 100,000 people. The highest value was in South Africa: 35.9 homicides per 100,000 people and the lowest value was in Benin: 1.1 homicides per 100,000 people. The indicator is available from 1990 to 2017. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.