Which cities have the highest murder rates?
St. Louis city, Missouri, had higher murder rates in its home county than any other major city.
There were 20,162 homicides in the US in 2024 — an average of about 5.9 deaths per 100,000 people. The national homicide rate has been at 5.0 or above since 2014.
The national homicide rate is down 13% from last year.
Crude homicide rate per 100,000 people, 1999–2024
Which cities have the most homicides?
One way to approximate city homicide numbers is with data from large urban counties. This is inexact, as some counties map to a single city others contain multiple cities or a broader metropolitan area, and some major cities (like St. Louis and Baltimore) are independent and don’t belong to any county. But county-level numbers are still instructive.
Cook County, Illinois, home to Chicago and its metropolitan area, had 719 homicides in 2024 — the most in the nation. The second highest was Los Angeles County, California, whose 88 cities, including Los Angeles, had 569 homicides.
Los Angeles and Cook Counties are also the two most populated counties in the country. When adjusted for population, Cook County’s 13.9 homicides per 100,000 people ranked 13th among 62 large-central metro US counties with reliable data, and Los Angeles County’s 5.8 ranked 38th.
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Which cities have the most homicides per 100,000 people?
Large cities whose home counties had the highest homicide rates in 2024:
- St. Louis city, MO
- Memphis, TN (Shelby County)
- Baltimore city, MD
- Washington, DC
- Richmond city, VA
St. Louis city had the highest homicide rate among large metro counties.
Crude homicide rate per 100,000 people and total homicides, 2024
The five large, urban counties with the lowest rates were home to:
- Santa Clara County, CA (home to San Jose)
- Orange County, CA (home to Irvine)
- Collins County, TX( home to Plano)
- The borough of Queens in New York
- Riverside County, CA (home to Riverside).
In large, urban municipalities with 20 or fewer reported murders, the rates were considered unreliable.
Such was the case in 2024 for the counties that are home to:
- The borough of Staten Island, New York (Richmond County)
- Jersey City, New Jersey (Hudson County)
- Providence, Rhode Island (Providence County)
- Chesapeake, Virginia (Chesapeake city is a county-equivalent)
The crude homicide rate was unavailable for al counties in Connecticut.
Which mid-size counties have the highest homicide rates?
Some less-populated urban counties also have higher-than-average homicide rates. These five mid-size counties had the highest homicide rates in 2024:
- Hinds County, MS (home to Jackson): 46.7 homicides per 100,000
- Montgomery County, AL (home to Montgomery): 30.5
- Orleans Parish, LA (home to New Orleans): 27.3
- East Baton Rouge Parish, LA (home to Baton Rouge): 26.9
- Caddo Parish, LA (home to Shreveport): 36.2
Which cities have rising murder rates?
From 2019 to 2024, murder rates rose in 35 of the nation’s 61 large urban counties with reliable data, fell in 25, and had no change in one.
In Shelby County, Tennessee (home to Memphis), the homicide rate had the largest net increase, from 24.1 homicides per 100,000 people in 2019, to 33.6 in 2024.
Two other places had net homicide increases larger than five points: Jefferson County (home to Louisville), Kentucky (net increase of 5.5 homicides); and Milwaukee County (home to Milwaukee), Wisconsin (increase of 5.1).
From 2019 to 2024, homicide rates rose in 35 large urban counties.
Change in crude homicide rates per 100,000 people, by large metropolitan county
Not all counties had rising murder rates: homicides fell in 25 large metro counties. The most pronounced drops were in Baltimore city, Maryland (from 47.3 per 100,000 people in 2019 to 31.7 in 2024) and Duvall County, Florida, home to Jacksonville (from 15.0 to 6.9).
Where does this data come from?
Where does this data come from?
Different agencies report on homicide differently. The CDC reports on homicide as a cause of death in its wide-ranging online data for epidemiologic research (WONDER) database, allowing comparisons among mortality rates, while the FBI reports on homicide in its crime data, allowing comparisons among crime rates.
USAFacts relies on CDC data because of its more complete dataset and consistency over time. The CDC collects homicide data from standardized death certificates, which contain medical information typically entered by coroners or medical examiners. The FBI, meanwhile, relies on local law enforcement agencies voluntarily reporting crime data; reporting participation varies by agency. Still, deaths could be miscounted by either agency as homicides (or not) based on limited detail on the circumstances.
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