No. Chicago is not the murder capital of the world, and it is not the murder capital of the United States either, at least not by the measure criminologists actually use to compare cities: homicides per 100,000 residents. Chicago records a lot of killings in absolute terms because it is the country’s third-largest city, with roughly 2.7 million residents. Adjust for population and it falls outside the top ten most dangerous American cities in most rankings, and it does not appear at all on standard lists of the world’s deadliest.
Why the Label Keeps Getting Attached
The confusion is statistical. Chicago has posted the highest total number of homicides of any U.S. city for roughly 13 consecutive years, a figure cited by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in August 2025.1KATV. Chicago Has Most Murders of Any US City for 13 Consecutive Years In isolation, that sounds like proof. It isn’t. Criminologist Jeff Asher of AH Datalytics has called raw-count comparisons across cities of different sizes “not an advisable way to examine homicide trends.” Ernesto Lopez of the Council on Criminal Justice put it the same way: “Relying on homicide counts at the city level is misleading, however, because generally cities with more people have a higher number of homicides.”2FactCheck.org. Adding Context to Trumps Misleading Claims About Crime in Chicago
Fordham law professor John Pfaff has noted that because Chicago is so large, it “can get a murder every day,” and that steady stream of incidents draws attention smaller cities with worse per-capita problems don’t get.3The Trace. Chicago Is Not the Most Dangerous City in America The same pattern shows up in Los Angeles County, which had the second-highest total number of homicides in the country in 2023 at 659 but ranked only 37th among large metro counties once population was factored in.4USAFacts. Which Cities Have the Highest Murder Rates
Where Chicago Ranks Among U.S. Cities
By the per-capita measure, Chicago sits well behind numerous smaller American cities. The University of Chicago Crime Lab put Chicago’s 2025 homicide rate at about 14.6 per 100,000 as of mid-December, ranking it 14th among the 100 most populous U.S. cities using 2024 data.5University of Chicago Crime Lab. 2025 End-of-Year Analysis of Crime Trends Using 2023 CDC figures, Cook County ranked 17th of 63 large metropolitan counties at 15.8 per 100,000.4USAFacts. Which Cities Have the Highest Murder Rates
Several U.S. cities consistently post rates far higher than Chicago’s. Year-to-date 2025 figures from the University of Chicago Crime Lab:
- St. Louis: 46.8 per 100,000
- Memphis: 29.3 per 100,000
- New Orleans: 25.4 per 100,000
- Kansas City: 25.4 per 100,000
- Cleveland: 24.6 per 100,000
- Detroit: 24.2 per 100,000
- Baltimore: 23.1 per 100,000
- Chicago: 14.6 per 100,000
St. Louis’s rate was more than three times Chicago’s.5University of Chicago Crime Lab. 2025 End-of-Year Analysis of Crime Trends
There is one narrow slice under which Chicago does lead. Among U.S. cities with more than one million residents (Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Houston, and Phoenix), Chicago has had the highest homicide rate for at least seven straight years. In 2024, its 21.7 per 100,000 was roughly three times Los Angeles’s 7.1 and nearly five times New York’s 4.7.6Center for Public Safety Initiatives, RIT. 2024 Homicide Statistics for 24 US Cities Fox News used this framing in an October 2025 segment. FactCheck.org called the one-million-resident cutoff “an arbitrarily tight” comparison group; drop the threshold to 250,000 and Chicago falls to 15th out of 87.7FactCheck.org. Pritzkers Inaccurate Pushback on Chicago Murder Rate Claim
Where Chicago Ranks Globally
The international picture is even less flattering to the label. The Instituto Igarapé’s Homicide Monitor ranks cities of at least 250,000 residents by homicide rate. In 2023, Chicago did not appear anywhere in the top 50. Seven other U.S. cities did make that list — Memphis, New Orleans, St. Louis, Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, and Washington, D.C. — all with rates ranging from about 39 to 64 per 100,000.8Instituto Igarapé. Where Are the Worlds Most Homicidal Cities in 2023
The most homicidal city in the world in 2023 was Durán, Ecuador, at 148 per 100,000, roughly ten times Chicago’s rate.8Instituto Igarapé. Where Are the Worlds Most Homicidal Cities in 2023 Durán’s rate had climbed from 4 per 100,000 in 2017 to 147 in 2023, driven largely by drug-trafficking turf wars, with half of its 456 murders tied to disputes over microtrafficking.9InSight Crime. Anatomy of Violence in Duran Ecuador The rest of the global top ten in 2023 was concentrated in Ecuador, South Africa, Mexico, and Brazil, with rates from roughly 77 to 103 per 100,000. More than 40 of the world’s 50 most murderous cities were in Latin America and the Caribbean.10Americas Quarterly. Latin Americas Murder Rates Reveal Surprising New Trends
The University of Chicago Crime Lab drew the same distinction in its 2025 year-end report, saying that Chicago’s violent crime rate “remains dramatically higher” than in cities like London, Paris, Berlin, and Tokyo but stays well below the world’s genuinely deadly urban centers.11University of Chicago Crime Lab. 2025 End-of-Year Analysis – Chicago Crime Trends
Which Direction Chicago’s Numbers Are Moving
The label has become more disconnected from the numbers as Chicago’s homicides have fallen sharply. In 2025 the city recorded 416 homicides, the lowest annual total since the mid-1960s and a 29% drop from 587 the year before.12Fox 32 Chicago. Chicago Homicides Fall in 2025 Shooting incidents dropped from 2,274 in 2024 to 1,471 in 2025, and shooting victims fell from 2,797 to 1,847.13ABC7 Chicago. 2025 Chicago Had Fewest Murders Recorded Since 1960s
The trend has been running for several years. After peaking at 804 homicides in 2021, annual totals fell each year: 719 in 2022, 623 in 2023, 587 in 2024, and 416 in 2025.12Fox 32 Chicago. Chicago Homicides Fall in 2025 The Council on Criminal Justice found Chicago’s first-half 2025 homicide rate was 33% lower than in the same period of 2024, about twice the average decline it measured across 30 large cities.14Council on Criminal Justice. Crime in Chicago – What You Need to Know The drop is part of a national pattern: FBI figures for December 2024 through November 2025 show murder down 10% across the country.15FBI Crime Data Explorer. Crime Data Explorer
Political rhetoric has run in the opposite direction. Following a Labor Day weekend in 2025 in which at least 58 people were shot, President Donald Trump called Chicago the “murder capital of the world” on social media.16KRCR TV. Trump Calls Chicago Murder Capital After Labor Day Weekend FactCheck.org described that characterization as “falsely labeled,” noting it works only if the comparison is limited to cities over one million residents. The same outlet found Governor JB Pritzker’s counter-claim that Chicago was “not in the top 30” for murder rates also inaccurate, since the city ranks somewhere within the top 15 to 30 depending on which population threshold is used.7FactCheck.org. Pritzkers Inaccurate Pushback on Chicago Murder Rate Claim
How Violence Is Distributed Inside the City
A citywide homicide rate can obscure how uneven the risk of violence actually is within Chicago. In 2016, when the city recorded 762 homicides, five police districts holding just 8% of the population accounted for 32% of the murders.3The Trace. Chicago Is Not the Most Dangerous City in America Research has shown that the highest-crime neighborhoods have stayed largely the same over decades, shaped by entrenched poverty and disinvestment.17Yale ISPS. 48 Years of Crime
The 2025 numbers show the sharpest declines happened in those same historically high-violence areas. West Englewood saw homicides fall by nearly 53%, Grand Crossing by 39%, and Auburn-Gresham by 37%.18City of Chicago. 2025 Year in Review Whether that holds will say more about the city than any label pinned on it from outside.