In 2024, Colima in Mexico ranked as the world's most dangerous city with a homicide rate of 140 per 100,000 inhabitants. Seven of the 10 cities with the highest murder rates worldwide are all found in Mexico. The list does not include countries where war and conflict exist. Latin America dominate murder statistics Except for Mandela Bay, all the cities on the list are found in Latin America. Latin America also dominate 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. Crime in South Africa Mandela Bay in South Africa is the only city outside Latin America among the 10 most dangerous cities worldwide. 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.

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 27.1 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 11.6 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 home to many corporations such as Monsanto, Arch Coal, and Emerson Electric. The economy of St. Louis is centered around business and healthcare, and in addition is home to 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. In spite of high crime levels, the GDP of the St. Louis metropolitan area has been increasing since 2001.

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.

Saint Kitts and Nevis saw a murder rate of 65 per 100,000 inhabitants, making it the most dangerous country for this kind of crime worldwide as of 2023. Interestingly, El Salvador, which long had the highest global homicide rates, has dropped out of the top 20 after a high number of gang members have been incarcerated. Meanwhile, Celaya 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.

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.

Among the cities depicted in this statistic, Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, registered the highest homicide rate as of 2023. An average of 118 people every 100,000 inhabitants in this city were reportedly murdered. In Kingston, the Jamaican capital, the homicide rate was estimated at 55.35.

Number and rate (per 100,000 population) of homicide victims, Canada and Census Metropolitan Areas, 1981 to 2023.

Colima was the city in Mexico that led the ranking of highest homicide rates in 2023. The city had a murder rate of approximately 140.32 per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Ciudad Obregón, with a homicide rate of 117.83. That year, those two cities had the highest homicide rates not only in Mexico, but in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The average for 2017 based on 23 countries was 2.3 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 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.

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 project was designed to isolate the effects that individual crimes have on wage rates and housing prices, as gauged by individuals' and households' decisionmaking preferences changing over time. Additionally, this project sought to compute a dollar value that individuals would bear in their wages and housing costs to reduce the rates of specific crimes. The study used multiple decades of information obtained from counties across the United States to create a panel dataset. This approach was designed to compensate for the problem of collinearity by tracking how housing and occupation choices within particular locations changed over the decade considering all amenities or disamenities, including specific crime rates. Census data were obtained for this project from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) constructed by Ruggles and Sobek (1997). Crime data were obtained from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). Other data were collected from the American Chamber of Commerce Researchers Association, County and City Data Book, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Environmental Protection Agency. Independent variables for the Wages Data (Part 1) include years of education, school enrollment, sex, ability to speak English well, race, veteran status, employment status, and occupation and industry. Independent variables for the Housing Data (Part 2) include number of bedrooms, number of other rooms, building age, whether unit was a condominium or detached single-family house, acreage, and whether the unit had a kitchen, plumbing, public sewers, and water service. Both files include the following variables as separating factors: census geographic division, cost-of-living index, percentage unemployed, percentage vacant housing, labor force employed in manufacturing, living near a coastline, living or working in the central city, per capita local taxes, per capita intergovernmental revenue, per capita property taxes, population density, and commute time to work. Lastly, the following variables measured amenities or disamenities: average precipitation, temperature, windspeed, sunshine, humidity, teacher-pupil ratio, number of Superfund sites, total suspended particulate in air, and rates of murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, auto theft, violent crimes, and property crimes.

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 55.63 per 100,000 inhabitants. It was followed followed by Recife, with a homicide rate of more than 41 per 100,000 inhabitants. In Latin America and the Caribbean, Feira da Santana was the 22nd most deadly city.

Number, percentage and rate (per 100,000 population) of homicide victims, 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 2023.

In 2023, the Mexican city of Colima was the most deadly city in the world, with a murder rate of 140.32 per 100,000 inhabitants. 7 out of the top 10 cities with over 250,000 habitants and the highest homicide rates were located in Mexico.

The violent crime rate measures the number of Part 1 crimes identified as being violent (homicide, rape, aggravated assault, and robbery) that are reported to the Police Department. These incidents are per 1,000 residents in the neighborhood to allow for comparison across areas. Source: Baltimore Police DepartmentYears Available: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

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 that spans two centuries on homicides per capita for the city of Los Angeles. 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. 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. Data were derived from multiple sources, including Los Angeles court records, as well as annual reports of the coroner and daily newspapers. Part 1 (Annual Homicides and Related Data) variables include Los Angeles County annual counts of homicides, counts of female victims, method of killing such as drowning, suffocating, or strangling, and the homicide rate. Part 2 (Individual Homicide Data) variables include the date and place of the murder, the age, sex, race, and place of birth of the offender and victim, type of weapon used, and source of data.

In 2023, the District of Columbia had the highest rate of murder and non-negligent manslaughter in the United States with a rate of 39 murders or non-negligent manslaughters per 100,000 inhabitants. Louisiana, New Mexico, Alabama, and Tennessee rounded out the top five states with the highest murder rates.

THIS DATASET WAS LAST UPDATED AT 8:10 PM EASTERN ON MARCH 24

OVERVIEW

2019 had the most mass killings since at least the 1970s, according to the Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Killings Database.

In all, there were 45 mass killings, defined as when four or more people are killed excluding the perpetrator. Of those, 33 were mass shootings . This summer was especially violent, with three high-profile public mass shootings occurring in the span of just four weeks, leaving 38 killed and 66 injured.

A total of 229 people died in mass killings in 2019.

The AP's analysis found that more than 50% of the incidents were family annihilations, which is similar to prior years. Although they are far less common, the 9 public mass shootings during the year were the most deadly type of mass murder, resulting in 73 people's deaths, not including the assailants.

One-third of the offenders died at the scene of the killing or soon after, half from suicides.

About this Dataset

The Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Killings database tracks all U.S. homicides since 2006 involving four or more people killed (not including the offender) over a short period of time (24 hours) regardless of weapon, location, victim-offender relationship or motive. The database includes information on these and other characteristics concerning the incidents, offenders, and victims.

The AP/USA TODAY/Northeastern database represents the most complete tracking of mass murders by the above definition currently available. Other efforts, such as the Gun Violence Archive or Everytown for Gun Safety may include events that do not meet our criteria, but a review of these sites and others indicates that this database contains every event that matches the definition, including some not tracked by other organizations.

This data will be updated periodically and can be used as an ongoing resource to help cover these events.

Using this Dataset

To get basic counts of incidents of mass killings and mass shootings by year nationwide, use these queries:

Mass killings by year

Mass shootings by year

To get these counts just for your state:

Filter killings by state

Definition of "mass murder"

Mass murder is defined as the intentional killing of four or more victims by any means within a 24-hour period, excluding the deaths of unborn children and the offender(s). The standard of four or more dead was initially set by the FBI.

This definition does not exclude cases based on method (e.g., shootings only), type or motivation (e.g., public only), victim-offender relationship (e.g., strangers only), or number of locations (e.g., one). The time frame of 24 hours was chosen to eliminate conflation with spree killers, who kill multiple victims in quick succession in different locations or incidents, and to satisfy the traditional requirement of occurring in a “single incident.”

Offenders who commit mass murder during a spree (before or after committing additional homicides) are included in the database, and all victims within seven days of the mass murder are included in the victim count. Negligent homicides related to driving under the influence or accidental fires are excluded due to the lack of offender intent. Only incidents occurring within the 50 states and Washington D.C. are considered.

Methodology

Project researchers first identified potential incidents using the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR). Homicide incidents in the SHR were flagged as potential mass murder cases if four or more victims were reported on the same record, and the type of death was murder or non-negligent manslaughter.

Cases were subsequently verified utilizing media accounts, court documents, academic journal articles, books, and local law enforcement records obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Each data point was corroborated by multiple sources, which were compiled into a single document to assess the quality of information.

In case(s) of contradiction among sources, official law enforcement or court records were used, when available, followed by the most recent media or academic source.

Case information was subsequently compared with every other known mass murder database to ensure reliability and validity. Incidents listed in the SHR that could not be independently verified were excluded from the database.

Project researchers also conducted extensive searches for incidents not reported in the SHR during the time period, utilizing internet search engines, Lexis-Nexis, and Newspapers.com. Search terms include: [number] dead, [number] killed, [number] slain, [number] murdered, [number] homicide, mass murder, mass shooting, massacre, rampage, family killing, familicide, and arson murder. Offender, victim, and location names were also directly searched when available.

This project started at USA TODAY in 2012.

Contacts

Contact AP Data Editor Justin Myers with questions, suggestions or comments about this dataset at jmyers@ap.org. The Northeastern University researcher working with AP and USA TODAY is Professor James Alan Fox, who can be reached at j.fox@northeastern.edu or 617-416-4400.

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.