War And Peace - Our World In Data

Fewer people died in conflicts in recent decades than in most of the 20th century.

The chart shows that several million people died in conflicts in the years after World War II.

After falling to much lower levels in the 1950s, conflict deaths surged again in the 1970s and 1980s. But this time, they peaked at 300,000 deaths annually.

They fell to much lower levels in the 1990s and have stayed below previous peaks in the decades since.

We see these lower numbers of deaths also in other datasources.

But there are several reasons we cannot be confident that this decline in conflict deaths will continue.

First, the chart shows more deaths in the last decade and, most recently, a spike in deaths due to wars in Ethiopia and Ukraine. The trends also differ by world region: deaths have plummeted and stayed low for Asia and Oceania, but they have recently increased in the Middle East and soared in Africa and Europe.

One more reason we cannot be confident is that the deadliness of conflicts shows a lot of variation from year to year. Some wars are much deadlier than others, so a single deadly conflict could change this trend completely. Researchers have used statistical tests to tell actual trends from random fluctuations but have come to different conclusions.4

But the absence of a clear trend should not cause despair: countries have built more peaceful relations between and within them. It is up to us that these historical trends continue over the next decades and centuries.

What you should know about this data

• There are several other leading approaches to measuring conflicts. You can explore them in our Conflict Data Explorer.