Worldwide terrorism 1970-2015
To complete our series on terrorism we created an overview on worldwide terrorism since 1970.

First graph, on top, shows the number of attacks, the number of people killed and wounded per year.
At the bottom you can see the breakdown per region (with data). In the seventies (Western) Europe was the main stage for terrorism. It shifted to Central America in the eighties and then to South America in the late eighties.
These days the Middle East and East Asia (Afghanistan, Pakistan) are the focus of terrorists.
Here's another view on the same data:
One of our readers wondered if terrorism became more violent. This is hard to tell. But we created an average for casualties (wounded + killed) per year. In this graph there seems to be a upward trend. The peaks in 1998 and 2004 we cannot explain.
Data: Global Terrorism Database van Start.
Number of terrorism attacks per region
1970 | 1971 | 1972 | 1973 | 1974 | 1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 | 1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Central America & Caribbean | 7 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 11 | 9 | 45 | 24 | 199 | 609 | 1070 | 1148 | 996 | 858 | 681 | 780 | 393 | 566 | 495 | 503 | 316 | 729 | 212 | 10 | 180 | 168 | 116 | 117 | 1 | 8 | 14 | 8 | 3 | 8 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 9 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 14 | 5 | 1 |
Central, East + Southeast Asia, Australasia, Oceania | 12 | 7 | 10 | 4 | 7 | 19 | 14 | 12 | 79 | 102 | 88 | 54 | 46 | 35 | 61 | 138 | 114 | 173 | 266 | 221 | 447 | 242 | 430 | 63 | 250 | 261 | 315 | 249 | 66 | 136 | 296 | 224 | 120 | 158 | 107 | 217 | 280 | 368 | 574 | 601 | 483 | 366 | 601 | 1207 | 1126 | 1098 |
Europe | 61 | 129 | 354 | 291 | 318 | 438 | 579 | 773 | 731 | 1020 | 597 | 488 | 405 | 477 | 545 | 471 | 458 | 418 | 494 | 460 | 448 | 780 | 860 | 227 | 679 | 405 | 651 | 597 | 246 | 374 | 487 | 486 | 232 | 221 | 104 | 175 | 168 | 134 | 372 | 346 | 393 | 291 | 361 | 418 | 1172 | 1005 |
Middle East & North Africa | 29 | 55 | 35 | 19 | 42 | 44 | 55 | 211 | 128 | 455 | 437 | 312 | 291 | 334 | 268 | 133 | 196 | 202 | 246 | 464 | 494 | 612 | 1193 | 209 | 1051 | 590 | 373 | 550 | 247 | 316 | 272 | 362 | 327 | 295 | 487 | 884 | 1179 | 1385 | 1535 | 1361 | 1463 | 1662 | 2411 | 4545 | 6917 | 5955 |
North America | 472 | 247 | 69 | 64 | 111 | 159 | 125 | 149 | 117 | 79 | 75 | 76 | 86 | 47 | 67 | 44 | 53 | 35 | 30 | 43 | 37 | 40 | 41 | 37 | 102 | 94 | 111 | 137 | 36 | 56 | 41 | 48 | 33 | 33 | 12 | 21 | 15 | 19 | 31 | 15 | 24 | 12 | 35 | 31 | 34 | 62 |
South America | 65 | 24 | 20 | 83 | 81 | 55 | 91 | 119 | 222 | 236 | 319 | 383 | 639 | 950 | 1492 | 1040 | 1184 | 1265 | 1041 | 1385 | 1076 | 1322 | 1204 | 85 | 373 | 255 | 517 | 774 | 108 | 134 | 150 | 229 | 162 | 117 | 42 | 49 | 50 | 47 | 144 | 159 | 148 | 106 | 133 | 179 | 281 | 175 |
South Asia | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 34 | 12 | 23 | 20 | 63 | 244 | 161 | 273 | 348 | 800 | 926 | 601 | 677 | 545 | 60 | 376 | 1051 | 737 | 490 | 136 | 225 | 355 | 385 | 332 | 353 | 369 | 603 | 938 | 981 | 1743 | 1946 | 1978 | 2135 | 3800 | 4606 | 4990 | 4568 |
Sub-Saharan Africa | 3 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 7 | 12 | 10 | 29 | 46 | 124 | 58 | 98 | 60 | 106 | 126 | 141 | 185 | 174 | 337 | 291 | 450 | 271 | 571 | 55 | 433 | 239 | 217 | 279 | 87 | 143 | 192 | 162 | 121 | 73 | 35 | 59 | 114 | 302 | 380 | 283 | 330 | 494 | 1156 | 989 | 2306 | 1935 |
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