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.

The American Civil War is the conflict with the largest number of American military fatalities in history. In fact, the Civil War's death toll is comparable to all other major wars combined, the deadliest of which were the World Wars, which have a combined death toll of more than 520,000 American fatalities. The ongoing series of conflicts and interventions in the Middle East and North Africa, collectively referred to as the War on Terror in the west, has a combined death toll of more than 7,000 for the U.S. military since 2001. Other records In terms of the number of deaths per day, the American Civil War is still at the top, with an average of 425 deaths per day, while the First and Second World Wars have averages of roughly 100 and 200 fatalities per day respectively. Technically, the costliest battle in U.S. military history was the Battle of Elsenborn Ridge, which was a part of the Battle of the Bulge in the Second World War, and saw upwards of 5,000 deaths over 10 days. However, the Battle of Gettysburg had more military fatalities of American soldiers, with almost 3,200 Union deaths and over 3,900 Confederate deaths, giving a combined total of more than 7,000. The Battle of Antietam is viewed as the bloodiest day in American military history, with over 3,600 combined fatalities and almost 23,000 total casualties on September 17, 1862. Revised Civil War figures For more than a century, the total death toll of the American Civil War was generally accepted to be around 620,000, a number which was first proposed by Union historians William F. Fox and Thomas L. Livermore in 1888. This number was calculated by using enlistment figures, battle reports, and census data, however many prominent historians since then have thought the number should be higher. In 2011, historian J. David Hacker conducted further investigations and claimed that the number was closer to 750,000 (and possibly as high as 850,000). While many Civil War historians agree that this is possible, and even likely, obtaining consistently accurate figures has proven to be impossible until now; both sides were poor at keeping detailed records throughout the war, and much of the Confederacy's records were lost by the war's end. Many Confederate widows also did not register their husbands death with the authorities, as they would have then been ineligible for benefits.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) verified a total of 46,085 civilian casualties during Russia's invasion of Ukraine as of May 31, 2025. Of them, 32,744 people were reported to have been injured. However, OHCHR specified that the real numbers could be higher. How many people have died during the war in Ukraine? OHCHR has estimated the number of deaths of civilians, or non-armed individuals, in Ukraine at 13,341 since the start of the war on February 24, 2022. The highest death toll was recorded in March 2022, at over 3,900. The figures on soldier deaths are reported by Russia and Ukraine’s governmental authorities, but they cannot be verified at this point and thus need to be taken with caution. Conflict-related deaths in Ukraine from 2014 to 2021 After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Ukraine has seen a military conflict between the government and the Russia-supported separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. OHCHR estimates that between 14,200 and 14,400 people, including civilians and military personnel, were killed in relation to that conflict from April 14, 2014, to December 31, 2021. Of them, at least 3,400 were civilians.

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.

Colombia CO: Battle-Related Deaths: Number of People data was reported at 87.000 Person in 2023. This records a decrease from the previous number of 107.000 Person for 2022. Colombia CO: Battle-Related Deaths: Number of People data is updated yearly, averaging 398.000 Person from Dec 1989 (Median) to 2023, with 34 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 3,392.000 Person in 2002 and a record low of 23.000 Person in 2020. Colombia CO: Battle-Related Deaths: Number of People data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Colombia – Table CO.World Bank.WDI: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Battle-related deaths are deaths in battle-related conflicts between warring parties in the conflict dyad (two conflict units that are parties to a conflict). Typically, battle-related deaths occur in warfare involving the armed forces of the warring parties. This includes traditional battlefield fighting, guerrilla activities, and all kinds of bombardments of military units, cities, and villages, etc. The targets are usually the military itself and its installations or state institutions and state representatives, but there is often substantial collateral damage in the form of civilians being killed in crossfire, in indiscriminate bombings, etc. All deaths--military as well as civilian--incurred in such situations, are counted as battle-related deaths.;Uppsala Conflict Data Program, http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/.;Sum;

Dramatic improvements in US military medicine have produced an equally dramatic shift in the kinds of battle casualties the US military has sustained in its most recent wars. Specifically, there has been a notable increase in the ratio of nonfatal to fatal casualties. Most studies of casualty aversion in the United States, however, have focused on fatal casualties. Using a series of survey experiments, I investigate whether respondents are equally sensitive to fatal and nonfatal casualties, differences between populations with and without close military ties, and whether views on casualties are conditioned by respondents’ level of knowledge about casualties or the individual costs of war they expect to incur. I find that, while the general public is generally insensitive to different types of casualties, respondents with close ties to the military are better able to distinguish among kinds of casualties. This advantage, however, is not due to respondents with close military ties being better informed about war casualties. Instead, those who bear the costs of war directly appear better able to distinguish among those costs.

During the Korean War (1950-1953), more than 373,000 civilians were killed on the South Korean side and about 282,000 on the North Korean side. The Korean War, which began on June 25, 1950, and ended with an armistice in 1953, was one of the largest proxy wars after the Second World War. The war led to millions of casualties, including approximately 1.9 million military personnel.

About this Dataset

U.S. Korean War Casualties from the U.S National Archives.

Category

Government

Keywords

korean,war,conflict,casualties,military

Row Count

36425

Price

Free

Central African Republic CF: Battle-Related Deaths: Number of People data was reported at 261.000 Person in 2023. This records a decrease from the previous number of 675.000 Person for 2022. Central African Republic CF: Battle-Related Deaths: Number of People data is updated yearly, averaging 88.000 Person from Dec 2001 (Median) to 2023, with 17 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 906.000 Person in 2021 and a record low of 27.000 Person in 2015. Central African Republic CF: Battle-Related Deaths: Number of People data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Central African Republic – Table CF.World Bank.WDI: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Battle-related deaths are deaths in battle-related conflicts between warring parties in the conflict dyad (two conflict units that are parties to a conflict). Typically, battle-related deaths occur in warfare involving the armed forces of the warring parties. This includes traditional battlefield fighting, guerrilla activities, and all kinds of bombardments of military units, cities, and villages, etc. The targets are usually the military itself and its installations or state institutions and state representatives, but there is often substantial collateral damage in the form of civilians being killed in crossfire, in indiscriminate bombings, etc. All deaths--military as well as civilian--incurred in such situations, are counted as battle-related deaths.;Uppsala Conflict Data Program, http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/.;Sum;

Comprehensive dataset tracking casualties, injuries, and fatalities in the ongoing Israel-Iran conflict since June 2025.

The World War II Enlistment and Casualty Records data set contains individual-level information on soldiers who were drafted or volunteered for service in the U.S. armed forces during World War II. The repository consists of three files: The digitized list of fallen soldiers who served in the U.S. Army or Army Air Force by name, state, and county of residence (300,131 observations) The digitized list of fallen soldiers who served in the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard by name, state, and county of residence (65,507 observations) The World War II Army and Army Air Force Enlistment records which were merged with the list of fallen soldiers (8,293,187 observations)

Israel IL: Battle-Related Deaths: Number of People data was reported at 1,671.000 Person in 2014. This records an increase from the previous number of 64.000 Person for 2012. Israel IL: Battle-Related Deaths: Number of People data is updated yearly, averaging 74.000 Person from Dec 1989 (Median) to 2014, with 22 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1,671.000 Person in 2014 and a record low of 5.000 Person in 1989. Israel IL: Battle-Related Deaths: Number of People data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Israel – Table IL.World Bank.WDI: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Battle-related deaths are deaths in battle-related conflicts between warring parties in the conflict dyad (two conflict units that are parties to a conflict). Typically, battle-related deaths occur in warfare involving the armed forces of the warring parties. This includes traditional battlefield fighting, guerrilla activities, and all kinds of bombardments of military units, cities, and villages, etc. The targets are usually the military itself and its installations or state institutions and state representatives, but there is often substantial collateral damage in the form of civilians being killed in crossfire, in indiscriminate bombings, etc. All deaths--military as well as civilian--incurred in such situations, are counted as battle-related deaths.; ; Uppsala Conflict Data Program, http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/.; Sum;

Replication Data for: Domestic Institutions and Wartime Casualties

The UCDP, Uppsala Conflict Data Program, contains information on a large number data on organised violence, armed violence, and peacemaking. There is information from 1946 up to today, and the datasets are updated continuously. The data can be downloaded for free.

The UCDP Battle-Related Deaths Dataset is a conflict-year and dyad-year dataset with information on the number of battle-related deaths in the conflicts from 1989-2013 that appear in the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset.

Purpose:

The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) collects information on a large number of aspects of armed violence since 1946.

Cite as: UCDP Battle-Related Deaths Dataset v.5-2013, Uppsala Conflict Data Program, www.ucdp.uu.se, Uppsala University

Iraq IQ: Battle-Related Deaths: Number of People data was reported at 10,211.000 Person in 2017. This records an increase from the previous number of 9,621.000 Person for 2016. Iraq IQ: Battle-Related Deaths: Number of People data is updated yearly, averaging 1,072.000 Person from Dec 1989 (Median) to 2017, with 29 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 23,038.000 Person in 1991 and a record low of 7.000 Person in 2001. Iraq IQ: Battle-Related Deaths: Number of People data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Iraq – Table IQ.World Bank: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Battle-related deaths are deaths in battle-related conflicts between warring parties in the conflict dyad (two conflict units that are parties to a conflict). Typically, battle-related deaths occur in warfare involving the armed forces of the warring parties. This includes traditional battlefield fighting, guerrilla activities, and all kinds of bombardments of military units, cities, and villages, etc. The targets are usually the military itself and its installations or state institutions and state representatives, but there is often substantial collateral damage in the form of civilians being killed in crossfire, in indiscriminate bombings, etc. All deaths--military as well as civilian--incurred in such situations, are counted as battle-related deaths.; ; Uppsala Conflict Data Program, http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/.; Sum;

Syria SY: Battle-Related Deaths: Number of People data was reported at 24,950.000 Person in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 43,936.000 Person for 2016. Syria SY: Battle-Related Deaths: Number of People data is updated yearly, averaging 41,218.000 Person from Dec 2004 (Median) to 2017, with 8 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 69,086.000 Person in 2013 and a record low of 1.000 Person in 2004. Syria SY: Battle-Related Deaths: Number of People data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Syrian Arab Republic – Table SY.World Bank.WDI: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Battle-related deaths are deaths in battle-related conflicts between warring parties in the conflict dyad (two conflict units that are parties to a conflict). Typically, battle-related deaths occur in warfare involving the armed forces of the warring parties. This includes traditional battlefield fighting, guerrilla activities, and all kinds of bombardments of military units, cities, and villages, etc. The targets are usually the military itself and its installations or state institutions and state representatives, but there is often substantial collateral damage in the form of civilians being killed in crossfire, in indiscriminate bombings, etc. All deaths--military as well as civilian--incurred in such situations, are counted as battle-related deaths.; ; Uppsala Conflict Data Program, http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/.; Sum;

Do the international laws of war effectively protect civilian populations from deliberate attack? In a statistical analysis of all interstate wars from 1900 to 2003 the authors find no evidence that signatories of The Hague or Geneva Conventions intentionally kill fewer civilians during war than do non-signatories. This result holds for democratic signatories and for wars in which both sides are parties to the treaty. Nor do they find evidence that a state's regime type or the existence of ethnic or religious differences between combatants explains the variation in civilian targeting. They find strong support, however, for their theoretical framework, which suggests that combatants seek to kill enemy civilians when they believe that doing so will coerce their adversaries into early surrender or undermine their adversaries' war-related domestic production. The authors find that states fighting wars of attrition or counterinsurgency, states fighting for expansive war aims, and states fighting wars of long duration kill significantly more civilians than states in other kinds of wars.

The highest number of civilian casualties in Ukraine during the Russian invasion that began on February 24, 2022, was recorded in March 2022, with 4,312 people killed and 3,018 injured. In May 2025, 183 civilian deaths were verified by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR),

Analysis of ‘List of war deaths ’ provided by Analyst-2 (analyst-2.ai), based on source dataset retrieved from http://data.europa.eu/88u/dataset/cfb10421-f7d8-4317-b10f-dbb0cafc4870 on 18 January 2022.

--- Dataset description provided by original source is as follows ---

Nominal records of the National Office for the Cultivation of Errors of Romanian and foreign soldiers dead in the War of Independence (1877-1878), World War I (1914-1918) and World War II (1939-1945).

--- Original source retains full ownership of the source dataset ---

Afghanistan Battle-Related Deaths: Number of People data was reported at 230.000 Person in 2024. This records a decrease from the previous number of 917.000 Person for 2023. Afghanistan Battle-Related Deaths: Number of People data is updated yearly, averaging 5,552.000 Person from Mar 1990 (Median) to 2024, with 35 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 35,787.000 Person in 2022 and a record low of 230.000 Person in 2024. Afghanistan Battle-Related Deaths: Number of People data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Afghanistan – Table AF.World Bank.WDI: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Battle-related deaths are deaths in battle-related conflicts between warring parties in the conflict dyad (two conflict units that are parties to a conflict). Typically, battle-related deaths occur in warfare involving the armed forces of the warring parties. This includes traditional battlefield fighting, guerrilla activities, and all kinds of bombardments of military units, cities, and villages, etc. The targets are usually the military itself and its installations or state institutions and state representatives, but there is often substantial collateral damage in the form of civilians being killed in crossfire, in indiscriminate bombings, etc. All deaths--military as well as civilian--incurred in such situations, are counted as battle-related deaths.;Uppsala Conflict Data Program, http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/.;Sum;