Homicide
Global homicide death rates, country rankings, and trends from 1990 to 2023.
| # | Country | Rate | Region |
|---|
This page presents age-standardized homicide death rates across 204 countries and territories, drawing on data from the IHME Global Burden of Disease Study 2024. Homicide mortality patterns vary considerably by geography, income level, and access to healthcare services. Understanding the epidemiology and population-level burden of homicide is critical for global public health policy, disease prevention strategies, and healthcare resource allocation.
The trend chart above shows how the global homicide rate has evolved since 1990, reflecting changes in risk factor prevalence, diagnostic capacity, treatment availability, and demographic transitions. Country rankings provide a comparative view of the current burden, highlighting disparities between high-income and low-income nations in homicide outcomes.
Homicide — the intentional killing of one person by another — claims approximately 460,000 lives globally each year, with young men aged 15-29 disproportionately represented as both victims and perpetrators. The Americas bear the highest regional burden, with Latin America and the Caribbean experiencing homicide rates four to five times the global average, driven by organised crime, drug trafficking, gang violence, and widespread firearm availability. Central America's Northern Triangle (Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala) and parts of Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela, and South Africa consistently rank among the world's most lethal settings. The mechanisms of homicidal violence vary geographically: firearms dominate in the Americas, sharp objects and blunt force are more common in Africa and Europe, while intimate partner violence disproportionately affects women across all regions. Structural risk factors include income inequality, unemployment, rapid urbanisation, weak rule of law, corruption, political instability, and cultural norms that normalise violence. Alcohol and substance use are proximate risk factors, present in a substantial proportion of homicide events worldwide.
Violence prevention operates across ecological levels. At the societal level, reducing income inequality, enforcing firearm regulations, and addressing impunity through justice system reform are foundational. Community-level interventions include focused deterrence strategies (such as Operation Ceasefire), hospital-based violence intervention programmes that intercept victims at the point of injury, and urban upgrading of informal settlements. Individual-level approaches encompass cognitive behavioural therapy for high-risk youth, substance abuse treatment, and parenting programmes that reduce exposure to adverse childhood experiences.
Across the 210 countries tracked in this dataset, homicide accounts for an average of 1.1% of total deaths. The highest share is recorded in El Salvador at 7.4%, while San Marino records the lowest at 0.02%. These figures reflect the most recent available data and illustrate the vast geographic variation in homicide mortality burden.