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.

In 2023, around 3,640.56 violent crimes per 100,000 residents were reported in Oakland, California. This made Oakland the most dangerous city in the United States in that year. Four categories of violent crimes were used: murder and non-negligent manslaughter; forcible rape; robbery; and aggravated assault. Only cities with a population of at least 200,000 were considered.

In 2022, the New Orleans-Metairie, LA metro area recorded the highest homicide rate of U.S. cities with a population over 250,000, at **** homicides per 100,000 residents, followed by the Memphis, TN-MS-AR metro area. However, homicide data was not recorded in all U.S. metro areas, meaning that there may be some cities with a higher homicide rate. St. Louis St. Louis, which had a murder and nonnegligent manslaughter rate of **** in 2022, is the second-largest city by population in Missouri. It is home to many famous treasures, such as the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team, Washington University in St. Louis, the Saint Louis Zoo, and the renowned Gateway Arch. It is also home to many corporations, such as Monsanto, Arch Coal, and Emerson Electric. The economy of St. Louis is centered around business and healthcare, and boasts ten Fortune 500 companies. Crime in St. Louis Despite all of this, St. Louis suffers from high levels of crime and violence. As of 2023, it was listed as the seventh most dangerous city in the world as a result of their extremely high murder rate. Not only does St. Louis have one of the highest homicide rates in the United States, it also reports one of the highest numbers of violent crimes. Despite high crime levels, the GDP of the St. Louis metropolitan area has been increasing since 2001.

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 graph illustrates the murder rate in the United States from 1985 to 2025. The x-axis represents the years, labeled with two-digit abbreviations from '85 to '25, while the y-axis shows the annual murder rate per 100,000 individuals. Throughout this 41-year period, the murder rate fluctuates between a high of 10.66 in 1991 and a low of 4.7 in 2014. Overall, the data reveals a significant downward trend in the murder rate from the mid-1980s, reaching its lowest point in the mid-2010s, followed by slight increases in the most recent years.

Number and rate (per 100,000 population) of homicide victims, Canada and Census Metropolitan Areas, 1981 to 2024.

There has been little research on United States homicide rates from a long-term perspective, primarily because there has been no consistent data series on a particular place preceding the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), which began its first full year in 1931. To fill this research gap, this project created a data series on homicides per capita for New York City that spans two centuries. The goal was to create a site-specific, individual-based data series that could be used to examine major social shifts related to homicide, such as mass immigration, urban growth, war, demographic changes, and changes in laws. Data were also gathered on various other sites, particularly in England, to allow for comparisons on important issues, such as the post-World War II wave of violence. The basic approach to the data collection was to obtain the best possible estimate of annual counts and the most complete information on individual homicides. The annual count data (Parts 1 and 3) were derived from multiple sources, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reports and Supplementary Homicide Reports, as well as other official counts from the New York City Police Department and the City Inspector in the early 19th century. The data include a combined count of murder and manslaughter because charge bargaining often blurs this legal distinction. The individual-level data (Part 2) were drawn from coroners' indictments held by the New York City Municipal Archives, and from daily newspapers. Duplication was avoided by keeping a record for each victim. The estimation technique known as "capture-recapture" was used to estimate homicides not listed in either source. Part 1 variables include counts of New York City homicides, arrests, and convictions, as well as the homicide rate, race or ethnicity and gender of victims, type of weapon used, and source of data. Part 2 includes the date of the murder, the age, sex, and race of the offender and victim, and whether the case led to an arrest, trial, conviction, execution, or pardon. Part 3 contains annual homicide counts and rates for various comparison sites including Liverpool, London, Kent, Canada, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Seattle, and San Francisco.

In 2024, six of the eight Brazilian cities with the highest homicide rates were in the Northeast. Feira da Santana led the ranking of the most violent city in Brazil, with a murder rate of ***** per 100,000 inhabitants. It was followed followed by Recife, with a homicide rate of more than ** per 100,000 inhabitants. In Latin America and the Caribbean, Feira da Santana was the **** most deadly city.

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 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.

Number, percentage and rate (per 100,000 population) of persons accused of homicide, by racialized identity group (total, by racialized identity group; racialized identity group; South Asian; Chinese; Black; Filipino; Arab; Latin American; Southeast Asian; West Asian; Korean; Japanese; other racialized identity group; multiple racialized identity; racialized identity, but racialized identity group is unknown; rest of the population; unknown racialized identity group), gender (all genders; male; female; gender unknown) and region (Canada; Atlantic region; Quebec; Ontario; Prairies region; British Columbia; territories), 2019 to 2024.

In 2024, the Mexican city of Colima was the second most deadly city in the world, with a murder rate of ****** per 100,000 inhabitants. * out of the top 10 cities with over ******* habitants and the highest homicide rates were located in Mexico.

This dataset includes all valid felony, misdemeanor, and violation crimes reported to the New York City Police Department (NYPD) for all complete quarters so far this year (2017). For additional details, please see the attached data dictionary in the ‘About’ section.

This dataset reflects reported incidents of crime that have occurred in the City of Chicago over the past year, minus the most recent seven days of data. Data is extracted from the Chicago Police Department's CLEAR (Citizen Law Enforcement Analysis and Reporting) system. In order to protect the privacy of crime victims, addresses are shown at the block level only and specific locations are not identified. Should you have questions about this dataset, you may contact the Research & Development Division of the Chicago Police Department at 312.745.6071 or RandD@chicagopolice.org. Disclaimer: These crimes may be based upon preliminary information supplied to the Police Department by the reporting parties that have not been verified. The preliminary crime classifications may be changed at a later date based upon additional investigation and there is always the possibility of mechanical or human error. Therefore, the Chicago Police Department does not guarantee (either expressed or implied) the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or correct sequencing of the information and the information should not be used for comparison purposes over time. The Chicago Police Department will not be responsible for any error or omission, or for the use of, or the results obtained from the use of this information. All data visualizations on maps should be considered approximate and attempts to derive specific addresses are strictly prohibited.

The Chicago Police Department is not responsible for the content of any off-site pages that are referenced by or that reference this web page other than an official City of Chicago or Chicago Police Department web page. The user specifically acknowledges that the Chicago Police Department is not responsible for any defamatory, offensive, misleading, or illegal conduct of other users, links, or third parties and that the risk of injury from the foregoing rests entirely with the user. Any use of the information for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited. The unauthorized use of the words "Chicago Police Department," "Chicago Police," or any colorable imitation of these words or the unauthorized use of the Chicago Police Department logo is unlawful. This web page does not, in any way, authorize such use. Data is updated daily.

This dataset shows City level data for all over the United States, and has various attributes for different crimes. Cities are shown as Latitude and longitude points. Attributes include murder, manslaughter, violent crimes, arson, motor vehicle theft, property crimes, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, theft, and rape. Data was provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Source: FBI URL: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/data/table_08.html

Colima was the city in Mexico that led the ranking of highest homicide rates in 2023. The city had a murder rate of approximately ****** per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Ciudad Obregón, with a homicide rate of ******. That year, those two cities had the highest homicide rates not only in Mexico, but in Latin America and the Caribbean.

This dataset contains aggregate data on violent index victimizations at the quarter level of each year (i.e., January – March, April – June, July – September, October – December), from 2001 to the present (1991 to present for Homicides), with a focus on those related to gun violence. Index crimes are 10 crime types selected by the FBI (codes 1-4) for special focus due to their seriousness and frequency. This dataset includes only those index crimes that involve bodily harm or the threat of bodily harm and are reported to the Chicago Police Department (CPD). Each row is aggregated up to victimization type, age group, sex, race, and whether the victimization was domestic-related. Aggregating at the quarter level provides large enough blocks of incidents to protect anonymity while allowing the end user to observe inter-year and intra-year variation. Any row where there were fewer than three incidents during a given quarter has been deleted to help prevent re-identification of victims. For example, if there were three domestic criminal sexual assaults during January to March 2020, all victims associated with those incidents have been removed from this dataset. Human trafficking victimizations have been aggregated separately due to the extremely small number of victimizations.

This dataset includes a " GUNSHOT_INJURY_I " column to indicate whether the victimization involved a shooting, showing either Yes ("Y"), No ("N"), or Unknown ("UKNOWN.") For homicides, injury descriptions are available dating back to 1991, so the "shooting" column will read either "Y" or "N" to indicate whether the homicide was a fatal shooting or not. For non-fatal shootings, data is only available as of 2010. As a result, for any non-fatal shootings that occurred from 2010 to the present, the shooting column will read as “Y.” Non-fatal shooting victims will not be included in this dataset prior to 2010; they will be included in the authorized dataset, but with "UNKNOWN" in the shooting column.

The dataset is refreshed daily, but excludes the most recent complete day to allow CPD time to gather the best available information. Each time the dataset is refreshed, records can change as CPD learns more about each victimization, especially those victimizations that are most recent. The data on the Mayor's Office Violence Reduction Dashboard is updated daily with an approximately 48-hour lag. As cases are passed from the initial reporting officer to the investigating detectives, some recorded data about incidents and victimizations may change once additional information arises. Regularly updated datasets on the City's public portal may change to reflect new or corrected information.

How does this dataset classify victims?

The methodology by which this dataset classifies victims of violent crime differs by victimization type:

Homicide and non-fatal shooting victims: A victimization is considered a homicide victimization or non-fatal shooting victimization depending on its presence in CPD's homicide victims data table or its shooting victims data table. A victimization is considered a homicide only if it is present in CPD's homicide data table, while a victimization is considered a non-fatal shooting only if it is present in CPD's shooting data tables and absent from CPD's homicide data table.

To determine the IUCR code of homicide and non-fatal shooting victimizations, we defer to the incident IUCR code available in CPD's Crimes, 2001-present dataset (available on the City's open data portal). If the IUCR code in CPD's Crimes dataset is inconsistent with the homicide/non-fatal shooting categorization, we defer to CPD's Victims dataset.

For a criminal homicide, the only sensible IUCR codes are 0110 (first-degree murder) or 0130 (second-degree murder). For a non-fatal shooting, a sensible IUCR code must signify a criminal sexual assault, a robbery, or, most commonly, an aggravated battery. In rare instances, the IUCR code in CPD's Crimes and Victims dataset do not align with the homicide/non-fatal shooting categorization:

1. In instances where a homicide victimization does not correspond to an IUCR code 0110 or 0130, we set the IUCR code to "01XX" to indicate that the victimization was a homicide but we do not know whether it was a first-degree murder (IUCR code = 0110) or a second-degree murder (IUCR code = 0130).
2. When a non-fatal shooting victimization does not correspond to an IUCR code that signifies a criminal sexual assault, robbery, or aggravated battery, we enter “UNK” in the IUCR column, “YES” in the GUNSHOT_I column, and “NON-FATAL” in the PRIMARY column to indicate that the victim was non-fatally shot, but the precise IUCR code is unknown.

Other violent crime victims: For other violent crime types, we refer to the IUCR classification that exists in CPD's victim table, with only one exception:

1. When there is an incident that is associated with no victim with a matching IUCR code, we assume that this is an error. Every crime should have at least 1 victim with a matching IUCR code. In these cases, we change the IUCR code to reflect the incident IUCR code because CPD's incident table is considered to be more reliable than the victim table.

Note: All businesses identified as victims in CPD data have been removed from this dataset.

Note: The definition of “homicide” (shooting or otherwise) does not include justifiable homicide or involuntary manslaughter. This dataset also excludes any cases that CPD considers to be “unfounded” or “noncriminal.”

Note: In some instances, the police department's raw incident-level data and victim-level data that were inputs into this dataset do not align on the type of crime that occurred. In those instances, this dataset attempts to correct mismatches between incident and victim specific crime types. When it is not possible to determine which victims are associated with the most recent crime determination, the dataset will show empty cells in the respective demographic fields (age, sex, race, etc.).

Note: The initial reporting officer usually asks victims to report demographic data. If victims are unable to recall, the reporting officer will use their best judgment. “Unknown” can be reported if it is truly unknown.

This table contains data on the rate of violent crime (crimes per 1,000 population) for California, its regions, counties, cities and towns. Crime and population data are from the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Uniform Crime Reports. Rates above the city/town level include data from city, university and college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies. The table is part of a series of indicators in the Healthy Communities Data and Indicators Project of the Office of Health Equity. Ten percent of all deaths in young California adults aged 15-44 years are related to assault and homicide. In 2010, California law enforcement agencies reported 1,809 murders, 8,331 rapes, and over 95,000 aggravated assaults. African Americans in California are 11 times more likely to die of assault and homicide than Whites. More information about the data table and a data dictionary can be found in the About/Attachments section.

This dataset reflects reported incidents of crime (with the exception of murders where data exists for each victim) that occurred in the City of Chicago from 2001 to present, minus the most recent seven days. Data is extracted from the Chicago Police Department's CLEAR (Citizen Law Enforcement Analysis and Reporting) system. In order to protect the privacy of crime victims, addresses are shown at the block level only and specific locations are not identified. Should you have questions about this dataset, you may contact the Research & Development Division of the Chicago Police Department at 312.745.6071 or RandD@chicagopolice.org. Disclaimer: These crimes may be based upon preliminary information supplied to the Police Department by the reporting parties that have not been verified. The preliminary crime classifications may be changed at a later date based upon additional investigation and there is always the possibility of mechanical or human error. Therefore, the Chicago Police Department does not guarantee (either expressed or implied) the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or correct sequencing of the information and the information should not be used for comparison purposes over time. The Chicago Police Department will not be responsible for any error or omission, or for the use of, or the results obtained from the use of this information. All data visualizations on maps should be considered approximate and attempts to derive specific addresses are strictly prohibited. The Chicago Police Department is not responsible for the content of any off-site pages that are referenced by or that reference this web page other than an official City of Chicago or Chicago Police Department web page. The user specifically acknowledges that the Chicago Police Department is not responsible for any defamatory, offensive, misleading, or illegal conduct of other users, links, or third parties and that the risk of injury from the foregoing rests entirely with the user. The unauthorized use of the words "Chicago Police Department," "Chicago Police," or any colorable imitation of these words or the unauthorized use of the Chicago Police Department logo is unlawful. This web page does not, in any way, authorize such use. Data is updated daily Tuesday through Sunday. The dataset contains more than 65,000 records/rows of data and cannot be viewed in full in Microsoft Excel. Therefore, when downloading the file, select CSV from the Export menu. Open the file in an ASCII text editor, such as Wordpad, to view and search. To access a list of Chicago Police Department - Illinois Uniform Crime Reporting (IUCR) codes, go to http://data.cityofchicago.org/Public-Safety/Chicago-Police-Department-Illinois-Uniform-Crime-R/c7ck-438e