40.4
homicide victims per 100,000 residents, 2024 and 2025
High trust, 85 of 100 The sources disagree: their figures run from 36.8 to 44.
All citiesAll of Colombia's figures
Santa Marta, Colombia among 50 cities
34 have a higher figure and 15 a lower one. Definitions differ between cities, and their years run from 2022 to 2025.
What this number counts
- Counts
- Intentional homicide victims per 100,000 residents
- Where
- Santa Marta, Colombia, as CCSPJP delimits it: the municipalities of Santa Marta, Ciénaga and Puebloviejo
- When
- Latest year from each source: CCSPJP 2025, MinDefensa 2025, Med. Legal 2024 (each source's latest year)
Where the number comes from (3 sources)
| Source | Figure and year | Definition | Quality | Counts for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
CCSPJP ranking of the 50 most violent cities in the world, 2025Consejo Ciudadano para la Seguridad Pública y la Justicia Penal A.C. (CCSPJP) · Independent countRetrieved 2026-10-26 | 40.392025 | Rank 29 of 50.Intentional homicide victims in 2025 (295) divided by 730,417 residents, for the city as CCSPJP delimits it (all municipalities that form one continuous urban area). Source for this country: the forensic institute Medicina Legal's preliminary counts with DANE population projections. Table 1, pp. 7-8; sources and calculations for this country in section 5, from p. 33. The report was read from the Internet Archive copy; CCSPJP's own site (seguridadjusticiaypaz.org.mx, hosted at geoenlace.net) redirected to an error page on 2026-10-26. CCSPJP's figure republishes Medicina Legal's forensic counts, which the Medicina Legal line also reports (for a different period or version), so it is shown but not counted. | 2 of 5 checks
| Not counted |
Ministry of Defence crime statistics, homicide victimsMinisterio de Defensa Nacional, Colombia (MinDefensa) · Police and justice recordsRetrieved 2026-10-26 | 36.82025 | Victims of homicide recorded in 2025 in Santa Marta, Ciénaga and Puebloviejo (278; dataset "HOMICIDIO", which holds intentional homicide and feminicide only), divided by DANE's projected population for 2025 (755,426).Raw files: policia_homicidio_municipio_2021_2025.csv (sum of "cantidad" by municipality and year, queried from the dataset's API) and PPED-AreaMun-2018-2042_VP.xlsx (https://www.dane.gov.co/files/censo2018/proyecciones-de-poblacion/Municipal/PPED-AreaMun-2018-2042_VP.xlsx). | 5 of 5 checks
| 50% |
Medicina Legal, presumed homicides (definitive figures)Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal y Ciencias Forenses (INMLCF) · Death and health registersRetrieved 2026-10-26 | 442024 | Deaths examined by the forensic institute in 2024 whose manner of death is presumed homicide, in Santa Marta, Ciénaga and Puebloviejo (328), divided by DANE's projected population for 2024 (745,499).Forensic autopsy records, the source of Colombia's death statistics for violent deaths. 2024 is the latest year with definitive figures. Raw files: medicinalegal_presuntos_homicidios_municipio_2024.csv (count of records by municipality, queried from the dataset's API) and PPED-AreaMun-2018-2042_VP.xlsx. | 5 of 5 checks
| 50% |
- MinDefensa50%
- Med. Legal50%
Shown but not counted: CCSPJP (republishes Med. Legal).
How the trust score was worked out
- Quality40 / 40
How well the sources are made
- Agreement19.3 / 30
How close the sources are to each other
- Independence16 / 20
How many separate ways the number was measured
- Freshness10 / 10
How recent the newest data is
Who reports it, and since when
figure no figure here, inside its range no later figure recorded change
Why the numbers differ
- City boundaries: CCSPJP adds up every municipality that forms one continuous urban area with the city (built-up areas less than 10 km apart), while UNODC and many official tables report the city or municipality proper. A metro-area rate and a single-municipality rate are not the same number. (source, retrieved 2026-10-26)
- Population estimates: each rate depends on its denominator. CCSPJP makes its own population estimates for Mexican municipalities and Trinidad, and takes Port-au-Prince's from a commercial website, while the official lines here use each statistics office's own projections (CONAPO, IBGE, DANE, INEC) or the FBI's population figures.
- CCSPJP's own estimates: for Mexico it raises SESNSP's municipal counts of case files by a correction factor, because SESNSP publishes victims only by state; for Port-au-Prince it assigns 70% of a national total projected from UN figures. In 2024 its Mexican estimates were below INEGI's death counts in 17 of 20 cities (report p. 70). (source, retrieved 2026-10-26)
- Years differ: the ranking is for 2025, while the latest definitive death registers are for 2024 and UNODC's city data stop in 2022 or earlier.
- Death registers count deaths whose certified cause is assault, by where the death occurred; police records count victims of crimes the police recorded, by where the crime was recorded. Deaths coded as "undetermined intent" can hide homicides in the death registers.
Common mistakes
- The ranking is not a list of every city in the world: it only includes cities of 300,000 or more people with published or estimable data, and it excludes deaths in armed conflict, so cities in war zones or in countries without city data cannot appear. (source, retrieved 2026-10-26)
- Numbeo's "Crime Index" and other website rankings built from visitor surveys measure how safe people feel, not homicide rates. (source, retrieved 2026-10-26)
Download, cite and report an error
From the table Which cities have the highest murder rates? Updated 2026-10-26.
Download every value in this table (CSV)
Cite as: RealStats, “Homicide rate in Santa Marta, Colombia”, updated 2026-10-26, with the original sources listed on the page.