Mapping the Murder Rate

From the excellent Hans Rosling, this map of murder rates in Europe:


Which reminded me that when folks like Steven Pinker write about Europe's low homicide rates, they're not talking about all of Europe.

It's a bit hard to see the labels and color differences on this map, but remember that Minnesota's homicide rate is around 1.8 per 100,000, which would put us in the middle blue color with Scotland and Greece. The darkest blue on this chart reflects a rate above 7 per 100,000. Only three U.S. states had homicide rates that high in 2012 (Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi).

Not a single U.S. state would fit into the lightest blue category, however. Though New Hampshire comes close (1.1).

Eastern Europe looks a lot like most of the U.S., and Russia is worse.