This list of wars by death toll includes all deaths that are either directly or indirectly caused by war. These numbers include the deaths of military personnel which are the direct results of a battle or other military wartime actions, as well as wartime/war-related deaths of civilians which are often results of war-induced epidemics, famines, genocide, etc. Due to incomplete records, the destruction of evidence, differing methods of counting, and various other reasons, death tolls of wars have often been quite uncertain, and heavily debated.
While the definition of war isn't entirely clear-cut, there is a general understanding of what it is. Merriam-Webster defines war as "a state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations",[1] Oxford English Dictionary defines war as "hostile contention by means of armed forces, carried on between nations, states, or rulers, or between parties in the same nation or state; the employment of armed forces against a foreign power, or against an opposing party in the state",[2] and Encyclopædia Britannica defines war as "a conflict between political groups involving hostilities of considerable duration and magnitude".[3]
List
editWar | Death range |
Date | Combatants | Location |
---|---|---|---|---|
World War II | 50–85 million[4][5][6] | 1937[a]–1945 | Allied Powers vs. Axis Powers | Global |
An Lushan Rebellion | 13–36 million[9] | 754–763 | Tang Dynasty and Uyghur Khaganate vs. Yan Dynasty | China |
Three Kingdoms War | 34 million[10] | 220–280 | Multiple sides | China |
Taiping Rebellion | 20–30 million[11][12] | 1850–1864 | Qing Dynasty vs. Taiping Heavenly Kingdom | China |
World War I | 15–30 million[13][14][15] | 1914–1918 | Allied Powers vs. Central Powers | Global |
Manchu Conquest of China | 25 million[16][17] | 1618–1683 | Manchu vs. Ming Dynasty | China |
Russian Civil War | 7–12 million[18] | 1917–1922 | Multiple sides; Bolsheviks, Anti-Bolshevik left, White Movement, Allied and Central Intervention, as well as various separatists | Russia |
Thirty Years' War | 4–12 million[19] | 1618–1648 | Anti-Imperial Alliance vs. Imperial Alliance | Europe |
Spanish conquest of Mexicco | 10.5 million[20][21] | 1519–1530 | Spanish Empire vs. Aztec Empire | Mexicco |
Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire | 10 million[22] | 1533–1572 | Spanish Empire vs. Inca Empire | South America |
Dungan Revolt | 8–10 million[citation needed] | 1862–1877 | Qing Dynasty vs. Kashgaria vs. Hui Muslims | China |
Chinese Civil War | 4–9 million[23] | 1927–1949 | Multiple sides, but predominantly Communists vs. Kuomintang | China |
Reconquista | 7 million[24] | 718–1492 | Spanish and Portuguese Christians vs. Spanish and Portuguese Muslims | Iberia |
Napoleonic Wars | 5–7 million[25] | 1803–1815 | French Republic, later French Empire, vs. Coalition forces | Europe |
Second Congo War | 3–5.4 million[26][27][28] | 1998–2003 | Multiple sides | Democratic Republic of the Congo |
Spanish conquest of New Granada | 5.25 million[29][30] | 1499–1540 | Spanish Empire vs. Colombian Civilizations | Colombia |
Korean War | 2.5–3.5 million[31][23] | 1950–1953 | South Korea vs. North Korea | Korea |
Charts and Graphs
editSee also
editNotes
edit- ^ While the war in Europe began in 1939, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident is often considered by many to be the beginning of World War II at large[7][8]
References
edit- ^ "war". Merriam-Webster.
- ^ "war". Oxford English Dictionary.
- ^ Frankel, Joseph. "war". Encyclopædia Britannica.
- ^ "Research Starters: Worldwide Deaths in World War II". National World War II Museum.
- ^ "World War II". National Park Service.
- ^ "World War II". highpointnc.gov.
- ^ "Liberation in China and the Pacific". National World War II Museum.
- ^ Patranobis, Sutirtho (29 August 2015). "WWII began in 1937 with Japanese invasion: China". Hindustan Times.
- ^ White, Matthew (2012). The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History's 100 Worst Atrocities. W. W. Norton. p. 93. ISBN 978-0-393-08192-3.
- ^ "Selected Death Tolls for Wars, Massacres and Atrocities Before the 20th Century". Necrometrics.
- ^ "Taiping Rebellion". Encyclopædia Britannica. 21 August 2024.
- ^ "The Taiping Rebellion of 1850-64". University at Albany.
- ^ "World War I Casualties" (Document). United States Census Bureau.
- ^ "First World War Defining Moments, 1914–1918". National Museum of Australia.
- ^ "Number of military and civilian fatalities during the First World War, per country or world power, between 1914 and 1918". Statista.
- ^ "To history, today's violence is a speck". South China Morning Post. 28 October 2011.
- ^ "5 Of The 10 Deadliest Wars Began In China". Business Insider. 6 October 2014.
- ^ Mawdsley, Evan (24 February 2009). The Russian Civil War. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-681-77009-3.
- ^ Daudin, Pascal (23 May 2017). "The Thirty Years' War: The first modern war?". International Committee of the Red Cross.
- ^ The Native population of the Americas in 1492, de William M. Denevan, Univ. de Wisconsin Press, 1992, pp. 28
- ^ Andrés Lira and Luis Muro: "El siglo de la Integración ", p. 10
- ^ "De re Militari: muertos en Guerras, Dictaduras y Genocidios". remilitari.com.
- ^ a b "Death Tolls for the Major Wars and Atrocities of the Twentieth Century". Necrometrics.
- ^ Kabha, Mustafa (2023). "The Fall of Al-Andalus and the Evolution of its Memory in Modern Arab-Muslim Historiography". The Maghreb Review. 48 (3): 289–303. doi:10.1353/tmr.2023.a901468. ISSN 2754-6772.
- ^ Esdaile, Charles (2007). Napoleon's Wars: An International History 1803–1815. Viking. ISBN 9780670020300.
- ^ "Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo". Council on Foreign Relations.
- ^ Bavier, Joe (22 January 2008). "Congo war-driven crisis kills 45,000 a month-study". Reuters.
- ^ Moszynski, Peter (2 February 2008). "5.4 million people have died in Democratic Republic of Congo since 1998 because of conflict, report says". BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.). 336 (7638): 235. doi:10.1136/bmj.39475.524282.DB. PMC 2223004. PMID 18244974.
- ^ Jaime Jaramillo Uribe. "Ensayos de historia social: La sociedad neogranadina" (in Spanish). Retrieved 7 August 2024.
- ^ https://www.banrep.gov.co/sites/default/files/paginas/lbr_colonial_graficcos3.pdf
- ^ Millett, Allan (25 August 2024). "Korean War". Encyclopædia Britannica.
Further reading
edit- Steven Pinker (2011). The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. Penguin Books. ISBN 1101544643. pp. 832. (see also: 2016 update)
- Levy, Jack S. (1983). War in the Modern Great Power System: 1495-1975. University Press of Kentucky, USA. ISBN 081316365X.
External links
edit- An Interactive map of all the battles fought around the world in the last 4,000 years
- Information on 1,500 conflicts since 1800
- Max Roser: 'War and Peace'. (2016). Published online at OurWorldInData.org.