War Deaths since 1945 Mapped

An estimated 51 million people have been killed in wars between 1945 and 2000. Almost a third of these deaths were amongst the population of China. China, Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan suffered the highest number of war deaths during this period.

Very few war deaths have occurred in Japan, Western Europe and North America between 1945 and 2000. Eastern Europe and South America also counted relatively few war deaths in total. Within these regions certain territories had high death counts, these territories include: Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Colombia, Bolivia and Guatemala

Territory size shows the proportion of deaths worldwide directly attributed to war or conflict that occurred there between 1945 and 2002

This is the map of world in proportion to population for comparison:

These are just some of over a hundred “cartograms” released on October 19 by Worldmapper, a collaborative project spearheaded by researchers at the University of Sheffield in England and the University of Michigan. The maps use 2002 data from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global Burden of Disease project to put a geographic twist on cause-of-death statistics.

More great maps at: http://www.worldmapper.org/ including some great animations on income levels etc.