While the murder rate in Baltimore and Detroit has hovered around 40-50 per 100,000 residents between 2002-2018, St. Louis has hovered in the low single digits from 2005-2016 before spiking to 66.07 in 2017. For the first time in the last 16 years, St. Louis is the deadliest city in the United States. 

In 2018 Baltimore’s murder rate per 100,000 was 51.04 and Detroit’s was 38.88, both cities slightly decreased from the year before. Baltimore and Detroit have been going back and forth for first place from 2002-2016 before St. Louis’ murder rate spiked.

Both Baltimore and Detroit had more homicides than St. Louis in 2018, but since St. Louis has the smallest population of the three cities the murder rate per 100,000 is higher. The city’s population is 320,00 while Detroit’s is 710,00 and Baltimore’s is 620,000. In 2018, Baltimore had 309 murders and Detroit had 261. St. Louis had 187 murders.

St. Louis is the 16th deadliest city in the world. Baltimore is the 23rd and Detroit is 46th. New Orleans is the only other U.S. city ranked in the top 50 deadliest cities in the world in 2018 at No. 50. In 2018, New Orleans murder rate per 100,000 was 37.

See the full chart here.