68.77
homicide victims per 100,000 residents, 2025
Low trust, 47 of 100 Only one source (CCSPJP), so it cannot be checked against another.
All citiesAll of South Africa's figures
Cape Town, South Africa among 50 cities
17 have a higher figure and 32 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
- Cape Town, South Africa, as CCSPJP delimits it
- When
- Latest year from each source: CCSPJP 2025 (each source's latest year)
Where the number comes from (1 source)
| 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 | 68.772025 | Rank 15 of 50.Intentional homicide victims in 2025 (3,441) divided by 5,003,954 residents, for the city as CCSPJP delimits it (all municipalities that form one continuous urban area). Source for this country: SAPS figures taken from the CrimeHub portal because the SAPS website was down, with Stats SA district projections. Table 1, pp. 7-8; sources and calculations for this country in section 5, from p. 81. 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. | 2 of 5 checks
| 100% |
- CCSPJP100%
How the trust score was worked out
- Quality16 / 40
How well the sources are made
- Agreement15 / 30
Unknown with one source, so set to half
- Independence6 / 20
How many separate ways the number was measured
- Freshness10 / 10
How recent the newest data is
Who reports it, and since when
No source of these kinds: police and justice records, death and health registers.
- Single source: nothing to check it against
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)
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From the table Which cities have the highest murder rates? Updated 2026-10-26.
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Cite as: RealStats, “Homicide rate in Cape Town, South Africa”, updated 2026-10-26, with the original sources listed on the page.