Most Dangerous Countries by Homicide Rate· by country
Every country ranked by lethal violence — the intentional-homicide rate. Worldwide it runs about 5.2 per 100,000 people a year. The highest on record is Turks and Caicos’s 76.3 per 100k; the lowest here is Oman’s 0.1 per 100k. This counts murder — not war, terrorism or petty crime — and each country is shown at its most recent available year. Explore the map, the full table and where any country stands.
Where lethal violence is highest
Color runs from safer to more dangerous by intentional-homicide rate. Pick a metric above — the map and the ranked list beside it move together. This measures murder, not war or terrorism, and each country is at its most recent available year. Hover or tap any country to read its figure.
Tap a country to read its figure.
Natural Earth 10m · Crimea shown as Ukraine · source: World Bank, CC BY 4.0
Every country, ranked
The complete table. Click a column to sort. The “Data year” column shows each country’s year — they differ, because homicide data has gaps.
| # ▲ | Country | Homicide /100k | vs world | Data year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Turks and Caicos | 76.3 | +71.1 | 2022 |
| 2 |  St. Kitts and Nevis | 64.2 | +59.0 | 2023 |
| 3 |  St. Vincent | 51.3 | +46.1 | 2023 |
| 4 |  U.S. Virgin Islands | 49.9 | +44.7 | 2012 |
| 5 |  Jamaica | 49.4 | +44.2 | 2023 |
| 6 |  Ecuador | 45.7 | +40.5 | 2023 |
| 7 |  South Africa | 43.7 | +38.5 | 2022 |
| 8 |  Haiti | 41.2 | +36.0 | 2023 |
| 9 |  Trinidad and Tobago | 40.4 | +35.2 | 2022 |
| 10 |  St. Lucia | 39.0 | +33.8 | 2023 |
| 11 |  Lesotho | 38.2 | +33.0 | 2008 |
| 12 |  Bahamas | 32.2 | +27.0 | 2022 |
| 13 |  Honduras | 31.4 | +26.2 | 2023 |
| 14 |  Belize | 28.1 | +22.9 | 2022 |
| 15 |  Dominica | 27.1 | +21.9 | 2023 |
What this number really means
The intentional-homicide rate — murders per 100,000 people per year — is the single most reliable, internationally comparable measure of lethal violence. Unlike surveys of "how safe do you feel", a body is hard to hide or misreport, so homicide statistics are the backbone of global crime comparisons. That is why this ranking uses homicide, not a broader "danger" score.
But it is a narrow measure, and that is the honest caveat. It counts murder, and nothing else: not war, not terrorism, not traffic deaths, not theft, not how safe a street feels at night. Turks and Caicos tops the list on a rate driven by a handful of killings in a tiny population, which swings sharply year to year. The countries that dominate the top of any stable, well-reported version of this list are in Latin America, the Caribbean and Southern Africa — Jamaica, South Africa and their neighbors — where organized crime, gangs and the drug trade drive most homicides.
And a homicide rate is not a travel warning. Most violence is concentrated in specific places and social contexts — gang territories, drug markets, domestic disputes — that a typical visitor never touches, so a "dangerous" country on this list can be entirely calm for someone who is not part of those conflicts. Equally, a low homicide rate does not mean a country is safe in every sense: it says nothing about war, disaster, disease or political repression. Read this as a precise answer to one question — "where is lethal violence most common?" — not as a verdict on where it is dangerous to be.
Five numbers worth remembering
The same dataset, squeezed into the facts people actually retell.
Where does a country stand?
Pick any country to see its homicide rate, its danger rank, the data year and how it compares to the world average.
Frequently asked questions
Which country has the highest homicide rate?
By intentional-homicide rate, Turks and Caicos has the highest on record — about 76.3 per 100,000 (2022), per World Bank / UNODC data. Several small island territories sit near the top on volatile, small-population rates. Among larger, consistently reported countries, Jamaica leads at about 49.4 per 100,000.
Does this mean these are the most dangerous countries to visit?
Not necessarily — this is the key caveat. It ranks the intentional-homicide rate, which measures lethal violence within a population, not risk to a visitor. Most homicides are concentrated in specific places and social contexts — gang and drug conflicts, domestic disputes — that a typical traveler never encounters. It also excludes war, terrorism and everyday crime. Use it as a measure of murder, not a travel-safety verdict.
What exactly does the homicide rate measure?
It counts intentional homicides — unlawful killings inflicted on purpose — per 100,000 people per year. It excludes deaths from war and armed conflict, terrorism, and accidents such as road crashes, and it does not include non-lethal crime like theft or assault. It is the most internationally comparable measure of lethal violence, which is why global crime rankings are built on it.
Why does the data year differ between countries?
Because homicide reporting has gaps — not every country publishes every year. To keep the list as complete as possible, each country is shown at its most recent available year, which ranges from 1994 to 2023 across this ranking. The year is shown in every row so you can see how current each figure is; older figures are flagged.
Which region is the most dangerous?
Latin America and the Caribbean have the highest homicide rates in the world, followed by parts of Southern Africa. Countries like Jamaica, South Africa, Ecuador, Honduras and several Caribbean nations record rates many times the global average, driven largely by organized crime, gangs and the drug trade.
Which countries are the safest by this measure?
The lowest homicide rates — well under 1 per 100,000 — are found across much of Asia, Europe and the Gulf. Countries such as Singapore, Singapore and several Gulf and East Asian states record some of the lowest rates of lethal violence in the world.
How many countries are in this ranking?
This page ranks 196 countries and territories for which the World Bank reports an intentional-homicide rate, using the most recent available year for each. Homicide data has gaps, so coverage is a little lower than for indicators like population or GDP, but it spans nearly every country with a reporting system.
Cite this page
CC BY 4.0Our compilation on this page — the figures as arranged, ranked and dated here — is published under CC BY 4.0. Reuse it anywhere, including commercially, with a link back. The underlying data belongs to the organizations credited below.
Us, by Numbers. "Most Dangerous Countries." https://usbynumbers.com
Sources & further reading
Every figure here is built on one open dataset: the World Bank’s intentional homicides per 100,000 (VC.IHR.PSRC.P5), sourced from UNODC and released under CC BY 4.0.
- World Bank — Intentional homicides (per 100,000 people) (VC.IHR.PSRC.P5)primary dataset
- World Bank Indicators API — VC.IHR.PSRC.P5, all countrieslive API
- Vision of Humanity — Global Peace Index (broader peace & conflict picture)broader peace index
- World Bank Open Data — public licenses (CC BY 4.0)license