Which provinces and cities in South Africa have the highest homicide rates and why?
This fact-check may be outdated. Consider refreshing it to get the most current information.
Executive summary
South Africa’s highest murder burdens fall on a handful of provinces — notably the Eastern Cape, Western Cape, KwaZulu‑Natal and Gauteng — with the Western and Eastern Cape repeatedly flagged for high homicide rates while Gauteng records the largest absolute number of murders because of its population size [1] [2] [3]. The drivers named across reporting are complex and overlapping: poverty and inequality, urban concentration and gang networks, high levels of armed robbery and carjacking in Gauteng, weakened policing capacity and declines in detective strength, and localised organised‑crime [4] [5] [6] [3].
1. Which provinces show the worst homicide rates — and how the metrics differ
National and UNODC figures place provinces such as the Eastern Cape, Western Cape and KwaZulu‑Natal among those with the highest murder rates per 100,000 people, even as Gauteng records the highest absolute number of murders because it is the most populous province [1] [2]. Analysts stress the distinction between raw counts and rates: Gauteng’s quarter‑by‑quarter totals can dominate headlines but its per‑capita murder rate (reported as lower than the national average in one recent quarter) is substantially below that of the worst‑affected provinces [2] [7].
2. The cities: hotspots inside provinces
Urban precincts and policing stations concentrate the country’s worst murder figures; media and ISS analysis show that North‑West precincts in Gauteng, Cape Town areas in the Western Cape, and specific Eastern Cape and KwaZulu‑Natal stations appear among the top localities for murders and violent incidents [3] [7]. BusinessTech and GroundUp reporting point to Cape Town as emblematic of high provincial rates in the Western Cape even where some improvements are noted, and to Johannesburg and metro Gauteng as focal points for particular violent crimes like carjacking and armed robbery [2] [8] [5].
3. Why these places — the structural drivers named in reporting
Multiple reports link high homicide rates to entrenched socioeconomic conditions — poverty, inequality, unemployment and social exclusion — and to the normalization of violence in some communities, factors that make lethal conflict more likely [4] [9]. Cape Town’s particularly lethal gang dynamics and township violence are repeatedly cited as a local driver in the Western Cape, while in Gauteng the concentration of kidnappings and carjackings explains why certain urban areas see intense lethal crime even when provincial rates are lower per capita [3] [5].
4. Institutional factors: policing capacity, data and investigative decline
Analysts and local reporting warn that policing weaknesses amplify the problem: South African police have lost thousands of detectives in recent years and emergency response centres are understaffed in many provinces, undermining investigations and response times — conditions that correlate with persistently high murder levels in affected provinces [6] [1]. The ISS also highlights that four provinces account for the bulk of murders (around 83% in one brief), arguing that targeted policing and investigative rethinking are required [7].
5. Caveats, competing narratives and what the data omit
The reporting underscores two critical caveats: homicide figures vary by source and by whether one uses raw counts or per‑100,000 rates, and there are longstanding concerns about manipulation or under‑reporting in some crime categories even though murder statistics are generally considered more reliable [1] [10]. Some sources frame recent quarters in 2025 as showing decreases in certain violent crimes, suggesting limited improvement in places like Gauteng even as entrenched provincial hotspots persist [5] [2]. Where reporting does not provide granular city‑by‑city homicide‑rate tables, this account does not invent them and relies on the cited national and provincial analyses [11] [12].