a memorial for all wars: the Polynational War Memorial
 

Wars Since 1900 - Statistics

How many died of wars in the 20th and 21st centuries? The simple answer is that it is impossible to know. But these totals from my war database may give a hint of the magnitude of the death toll. Please note that these numbers only includes battle-related deaths (see the new faq for definitions) for the whole period. It does not include "excess" deaths from famine or disease. It partly includes onesided organized violence against civilians (incl. genocides, democides etc.) from 1989-2012 but only some of the major onesided atrocities before 1989. Please note that the list of wars from which these numbers are aggregated is a work in progress.

NEW! How many wars per nation in the 20th and 21st centuries? The list is further down.

Numbers of wars in the database: 268

Battle deaths, including civilans
Battle deaths, best: 76,193,824
Battle deaths, low: 71,937,721
Battle deaths, high: 116,489,136

Deaths from onesided violence (since 1989)
Onesided violence, best: 3,547,481
Onesided violence, low: 1,358,641
Onesided violence, high: 13,440,023

Battle-deaths in non-state wars (since 1989)
Non-state, best: 117,545
Non-state, low: 109,052
Non-state, high: 163,490

Sum of best estimations above
Total deaths: 79,858,850

This is aggregated "live" data which is updated whenever numbers for a single conflict are updated.

It's quite interesting to note that my stats compare quite well with Matthew White's estimate for military and collateral deaths in the 20th century, which he puts at 64 million.

 

NATIONS AND WARS (beta)

How many wars per nation in the 20th and 21st centuries? I often get the question how many wars a specific country have been involved in, and here's the list. DISCLAIMER: Please, take the list with a bushel of salt. See it as an indication rather than the truth. It's not free from errors. Information may be missing.

Also remember that this information is pretty random. Some wars are part of longer historical conflicts while wars with a long timespan may be a series of wars. It says little about the willingness of a nation to go to war.

My criteria for including a nation is if that nation had "troops on the ground" in a particular conflict (sending observers, training personell, sponsoring or financing the conflict don't count). Click a link to get to the wars for that nation.

 

 Afghanistan 6
 Albania 1
 Algeria 3
 Andorra 1
 Angola 6
 Argentina 4
 Armenia 3
 Australia 7
 Austria 5
 Azerbaijan 4
 Bahrain 2
 Bangladesh 2
 Belgium 4
 Bolivia 2
 Bosnia and Herzegovina 2
 Brazil 3
 Bulgaria 5
 Burkina Faso 1
 Burundi 6
 Cambodia 4
 Cameroon 3
 Canada 3
 Central African Republic 1
 Chad 6
 Chile 1
 China 34
 Colombia 3
 Congo 2
 Costa Rica 4
 Cote d'Ivoire 1
 Croatia 2
 Cuba 6
 Cyprus 1
 Czech Republic 2
 Democratic Republic of the Con 8
 Denmark 2
 Dominican Republic 1
 East Timor 1
 Egypt 6
 El Salvador 6
 Eritrea 2
 Estonia 4
 Ethiopia 10
 Islas Malvinas / Falkland Isla 1
 Finland 5
 France 27
 Georgia 2
 Germany 9
 Greece 8
 Guatemala 6
 Guinea-Bissau 2
 Haiti 2
 Honduras 5
 Hungary 6
 Iceland 1
 India 15
 Indonesia 8
 Iran 7
 Iraq 12
 Ireland 4
 Israel 8
 Italy 9
 Japan 9
 Jordan 4
 Kenya 1
 North Korea 1
 South Korea 5
 Kosovo 1
 Kuwait 1
 Laos 2
 Latvia 3
 Lebanon 3
 Liberia 2
 Libya 6
 Lithuania 3
 Luxembourg 1
 Macedonia 2
 Madagascar 1
 Malaysia 2
 Mali 1
 Malta 1
 Mauritania 1
 Mexico 5
 Mongolia 1
 Montenegro 3
 Morocco 7
 Mozambique 2
 Myanmar (Burma) 4
 Namibia 3
 Nepal 2
 Netherlands 5
 New Zealand 4
 Nicaragua 5
 Niger 1
 Nigeria 7
 Norway 2
 Pakistan 8
 Palestinian Authority 1
 Panama 2
 Paraguay 3
 Peru 2
 Philippines 7
 Poland 7
 Portugal 6
 Puerto Rico 1
 Romania 7
 Russia 14
 Rwanda 5
 San Marino 1
 Saudi Arabia 6
 Senegal 3
 Serbia 6
 Sierra Leone 1
 Singapore 1
 Slovakia 1
 Slovenia 1
 Somalia 5
 South Africa 6
 South Sudan 3
 Spain 9
 Sri Lanka 3
 Sudan 7
 Sweden 1
 Syria 9
 Taiwan 3
 Tajikistan 1
 Thailand 6
 Tanzania 3
 Tonga 1
 Tunisia 2
 Turkey 9
 Turkmenistan 1
 Uganda 5
 Ukraine 2
 United Arab Emirates 2
 United Kingdom 30
 United States 24
 Uruguay 1
 Vietnam 8
 Western Sahara 1
 Yemen 7
 Zimbabwe 2
 Yugoslavia 3
 Soviet Union 20
 Czechoslovakia 4
 Austria-Hungary 2
 Dervish State 2
 Jabal Shammar 1
 Ottoman Empire 8
 Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, 1