Which big U.S. cities have the highest murder rates?

In 2025 St. Louis, MO had the highest murder rate of the 89 biggest U.S. cities whose police reported a full year to the FBI, about 51.3 per 100,000 people, followed by Memphis, TN (31.0) and Cleveland, OH (28.0). Irvine, CA (0.0) and Plano, TX (0.7) had the lowest; the U.S. rate was about 4.4. Departments that didn't report a full year are left out (for 2025, New Orleans, Orlando and St. Petersburg, Florida). Each rate is per person the department serves, and a few, such as Las Vegas, Honolulu, Jacksonville and Louisville, serve their whole county. A city's rate also depends on where its borders fall, so compare cities with care.

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Bars are sorted from highest to lowest and start at zero; each one's value is at its end. The dashed line is “U.S. overall”, for comparison. It opens on the top and bottom 10; use “Show all” or the search box for the rest.

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Key facts

Measure: Murders per 100,000 people. Written from the data below.

  • St. Louis, MO has the highest figure, 51.3, followed by Memphis, TN (31) and Cleveland, OH (28).
  • Irvine, CA has the lowest figure, 0, followed by Plano, TX (0.7) and Irving, TX (1.5).
  • U.S. overall: 4.4. Of the 89 compared, 57 are above it, 31 below, and 1 the same.

The bigger picture, in plain words: Is crime falling in the U.S.?, Which big U.S. cities have the highest murder rates, and is it falling?

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How to read this chart

Each bar is the number of murders in a city in one year for every 100,000 people its police department serves. The dashed line is the U.S. rate. Murders are rare, so in a smaller city a handful more or fewer in one year can move its rate and its rank a lot.

Questions to discuss

  1. How many cities on the chart have a murder rate above the U.S. rate, and how many are below it?
  2. Why does a chart like this use murders per 100,000 people instead of the total number of murders in each city?
  3. A city's rank can jump from one year to the next. Why might small numbers make rates bounce around?

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Source and date

Source
FBI Crime Data Explorer, Uniform Crime Reporting Program
License
Public domain (U.S. government work); source FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program
Data as of
Published

Citation

Chartly. “Which big U.S. cities have the highest murder rates?” Chart. Data: FBI Crime Data Explorer, Uniform Crime Reporting Program, https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crime/crime-trend (data as of December 31, 2025). https://chart.ly/charts/murder-rate-by-city (accessed November 5, 2026).

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The data

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The file has the numbers in this table, with the source, license and date. Please credit the source and Chartly. Developers can also get them as JSON (how).

City Murders per 100,000 people
St. Louis, MO 51.3
Memphis, TN 31
Cleveland, OH 28
Kansas City, MO 25.9
Detroit, MI 25.7
Milwaukee, WI 25.4
Baltimore, MD 24.2
Cincinnati, OH 20.9
Atlanta, GA 18.6
Washington, DC 16.6
Indianapolis, IN 15.4
Philadelphia, PA 14.7
Minneapolis, MN 14.5
Albuquerque, NM 13.4
Chicago, IL 12.7
Oakland, CA 12.4
Toledo, OH 12.1
Fort Wayne, IN 12
Louisville, KY 12
Greensboro, NC 11.9
Houston, TX 11.4
Stockton, CA 11.4
Durham, NC 10.7
Buffalo, NY 10.5
Dallas, TX 10.5
Winston-Salem, NC 10.5
Newark, NJ 10.4
Pittsburgh, PA 10.1
Oklahoma City, OK 9.7
Charlotte, NC 9
Columbus, OH 9
Wichita, KS 9
Aurora, CO 8.8
Anchorage, AK 8.4
Nashville, TN 7.9
Portland, OR 7.9
Bakersfield, CA 7.8
Jacksonville, FL 7.8
Sacramento, CA 7.8
Fort Worth, TX 7.6
Phoenix, AZ 7.5
Tucson, AZ 7.4
North Las Vegas, NV 7.3
San Antonio, TX 6.8
Long Beach, CA 6.5
Tulsa, OK 6.3
Denver, CO 6
Los Angeles, CA 5.9
Las Vegas, NV 5.5
Omaha, NE 5.3
Austin, TX 5.2
Miami, FL 5.2
Colorado Springs, CO 5
Raleigh, NC 4.9
Reno, NV 4.9
St. Paul, MN 4.9
Lexington, KY 4.5
Lubbock, TX 4.4
U.S. overall 4.4
Chesapeake, VA 4.3
Fresno, CA 4.3
Jersey City, NJ 4.3
Seattle, WA 4.3
Corpus Christi, TX 4.1
Riverside, CA 4
Tampa, FL 4
El Paso, TX 3.8
Glendale, AZ 3.8
Santa Ana, CA 3.8
Boston, MA 3.6
Mesa, AZ 3.5
Arlington, TX 3.4
Gilbert, AZ 3.4
New York, NY 3.4
San Francisco, CA 3.4
Virginia Beach, VA 3.3
Laredo, TX 3
Anaheim, CA 2.6
Chula Vista, CA 2.5
Garland, TX 2.4
San Jose, CA 2.4
Henderson, NV 2
Lincoln, NE 2
Chandler, AZ 1.8
San Diego, CA 1.8
Madison, WI 1.7
Honolulu, HI 1.5
Irving, TX 1.5
Plano, TX 0.7
Irvine, CA 0

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