What city‑level homicide data for European cities are available from Eurostat or UNODC for 2024–2025?
Executive summary
Eurostat maintains a dedicated city‑level dataset for "intentional homicide victims and offences in largest cities," while UNODC's public offerings focus primarily on national‑level homicide statistics with comprehensive country time series rather than standardized city files [1] [2]. For 2024–2025 researchers will therefore find city data most reliably from Eurostat's largest‑cities series (historically covering 2022–2023 in public reporting), whereas UNODC and derivative compilations chiefly supply country‑level rates and global comparisons [1] [3] [2].
1. What Eurostat actually offers at city level
Eurostat explicitly documents "intentional homicide victims and offences in largest cities" as part of its crime and criminal justice domain, indicating an official, standardized city‑level series collected under the broader EU statistical framework [1]. Eurostat's news releases and explanations also publish EU‑wide homicide totals and trends — for example reporting 3,930 intentional homicides recorded by police across the EU in 2023 and noting a 1.5% increase versus 2022 — which shows Eurostat is compiling recent data, though those particular figures are presented at the EU and country level in the public news product [3] [4]. Publicly cited charts and aggregations derived from Eurostat (via secondary services such as Statista) demonstrate Eurostat has provided city and country breakdowns at least through 2022 and 2023 in prior publications, but direct access to the raw, up‑to‑the‑month city dataset requires consulting Eurostat's crime database pages [5] [1].
2. What UNODC provides and its practical limits for city work
UNODC's Intentional Homicide data portal is the authoritative global time series used by researchers and compilations (cited by Our World in Data), but the portal is organized primarily around country‑level victim counts and rates rather than routine, harmonized city‑level releases [2]. International compilations that rely on UNODC — including the widely used "list of countries by homicide rate" — make clear the organization’s comparative strength is national comparability and long‑run trends, not fine‑grained municipal surveillance [6] [2]. Thus UNODC is essential for cross‑country benchmarking in 2024–2025, but it will rarely substitute for Eurostat when the question is systematic city‑level homicide counts across multiple European municipalities [6] [2].
3. What is available for 2024–2025 specifically and where the gaps lie
Eurostat has the framework and explicit city series in place and has published material through 2023 — secondary outlets have shown city lists from 2022 — but public documentation tied directly to 2024 or 2025 city figures is limited in the provided sources, implying that researchers seeking up‑to‑date municipal homicide counts for 2024–2025 must check Eurostat’s crime database and the "largest cities" tables for recent uploads or national statistical office supplements [1] [5] [3]. UNODC’s 2025 portal and derivative visualizations consolidate national homicide rates through 2024 but do not offer a standard pan‑European city dataset in the available material, so any city‑level 2024–2025 data from UNODC would likely be sporadic, indirect, or derived from national submissions rather than a unified UNODC city table [2] [6].
4. Alternative sources, caveats and agendas to watch
Commercial or crowd‑sourced city rankings (e.g., Numbeo) and advocacy or media lists of “most dangerous” European cities exist and are often cited, but they are not substitutes for Eurostat’s official city series or UNODC country data and carry transparency and methodology concerns [7] [8]. Secondary aggregators such as Statista repackage Eurostat material (noting gaps for certain countries) and can simplify access to historical city or country charts, but they may be paywalled and depend on the underlying Eurostat/UNODC releases for accuracy [5]. Readers should note institutional agendas: Eurostat emphasizes harmonization across EU contexts, UNODC emphasizes global comparability, while private sites may prioritize attention‑grabbing city lists [1] [2] [7].
5. Practical next steps for researchers
To obtain city‑level homicide counts for European municipalities in 2024–2025, the most direct path is to consult Eurostat’s crime database and the specific "intentional homicide victims and offences in largest cities" tables and to cross‑check with national statistical offices for the latest municipal releases; UNODC should be used for country‑level context and benchmarking but not as a primary source for systematic city‑level series across Europe [1] [3] [2]. Where Eurostat's public tables do not yet include 2024 or 2025 city data, expect to find country totals via Eurostat and UNODC while municipal figures will require piecing together national police or city authority reports [3] [2] [1].