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Ranked: The World’s 12 Least Peaceful Countries (2020-2024)

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See this visualization first on the Voronoi app.

This visual ranks the world's least peaceful countries from 2020 to 2024, according to the Global Peace Index

Ranked: The World’s 12 Least Peaceful Countries (2020-2024)

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Is the world becoming more or less peaceful?

That’s the tricky question that the Global Peace Index tries to answer annually.

According to the latest edition of the report, 2024 is the fifth straight year in which global peacefulness has actually deteriorated, with the Russia-Ukraine and Gaza Strip conflicts being some of the key drivers.

This graphic from Julie Peasley highlights the 12 least peaceful countries between 2020-2024.

Methodology

The Global Peace Index is a scoring system adopted by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP). It tries to quantify 23 different metrics that drive peace in a country.

Every year the non-partisan group ranks 163 countries, covering 99.7% of the world’s population, based on factors such as military expenditure, weapons imports and exports, political terror scale, deaths from internal and external conflict, nuclear and heavy weapons, perceptions of criminality, homicide rate, political instability, violent crime, and demonstrations.

The Least Peaceful Countries in the World

Here are the countries that topped the index over the last five years.

Rank20202021202220232024
1🇦🇫 Afghanistan🇦🇫 Afghanistan🇦🇫 Afghanistan🇦🇫 Afghanistan🇾🇪 Yemen
2🇸🇾 Syria🇾🇪 Yemen🇾🇪 Yemen🇾🇪 Yemen🇸🇩 Sudan
3🇮🇶 Iraq🇸🇾 Syria🇸🇾 Syria🇸🇾 Syria🇸🇸 South Sudan
4🇸🇸 South Sudan🇸🇸 South Sudan🇷🇺 Russia🇸🇸 South Sudan🇦🇫 Afghanistan
5🇾🇪 Yemen🇮🇶 Iraq🇸🇸 South Sudan🇨🇩 DRC🇺🇦 Ukraine
6🇸🇴 Somalia🇸🇴 Somalia🇨🇩 DRC🇷🇺 Russia🇨🇩 DRC
7🇱🇾 Libya🇨🇩 DRC🇮🇶 Iraq🇺🇦 Ukraine🇷🇺 Russia
8🇨🇩 DRC🇱🇾 Libya🇸🇴 Somalia🇸🇴 Somalia🇸🇾 Syria
9🇨🇫 Cen. African Rep🇨🇫 Cen. African Rep🇨🇫 Cen. African Rep🇸🇩 Sudan🇮🇱 Israel
10🇷🇺 Russia🇷🇺 Russia🇸🇩 Sudan🇮🇶 Iraq🇲🇱 Mali
11🇸🇩 Sudan🇸🇩 Sudan🇺🇦 Ukraine🇲🇱 Mali🇸🇴 Somalia
12🇵🇰 Pakistan🇻🇪 Venezuela🇰🇵 North Korea🇨🇫 Cen. African Rep🇰🇵 North Korea

In 2024, Yemen tops the list of the world’s least peaceful countries for the first time. In the three years previous, it ranked #2.

Ukraine has climbed the list consistently since war broke out in 2022, with the country ranking #5 in this year’s report.

Interestingly, militarization rates increased more this year than in the entire history of the index, having an outsized impact in decreasing overall peace. Of the 163 countries in the index, 108 (66.3%) of them saw rising militarization.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

Above are the least peaceful countries in the world, but which ones are the most peaceful according to the same index? Look at the most peaceful countries on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

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This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.

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Water

Charted: A Decade of Rising Water Violence (2010–2023)

As active conflict zones (Yemen, Syria, Sudan, Russia-Ukraine, and Israel-Palestine) have increased, so too has water violence.

Published

4 days ago

on

November 30, 2024

By

This chart tracks water-related violence from 2013 to 2023.

Charted: A Decade of Rising Water Conflicts (2010–2023)

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Some of humanity’s earliest wars were fought over water, one of the most essential resources for survival.

Modern day water violence has now expanded in scope. Controlling access is still a factor, but now water resources can be weapons, triggers, targets, and casualties in ongoing conflicts.

And the trend is only worsening. In 2023 there were 248 verified instances of water violence, up from only 19 in 2010, according to data from the Pacific Institute.

We look into why below.

ℹ️ The Water Chronology Conflict Timeline is a live database updated retrospectively, so yearly totals may change as new evidence emerges for past incidents.

Wars, Scarcity, and Fights for Control

As active conflict zones (Yemen, Syria, Sudan, Russia-Ukraine, and Israel-Palestine) have increased, so too have attacks on water systems.

YearWater Violence Events
201019
201117
201251
201329
201451
201557
201665
201784
2018131
2019129
202079
2021127
2022228
2023248

These range from Saudi airstrikes hitting essential treatment plants in Yemen in 2014, to U.S. Special forces bombing the Tabqa Dam in Syria in 2017, to Russian forces cutting off water supply to Ukrainian cities.

The recent Israel-Hamas war has also escalated water-related violence in both Gaza and the West Bank.

Along with this, rising scarcity has led to clashes within countries as well. In sub-Saharan Africa farmers and herders are in ongoing conflict over water sources, worsened by ongoing droughts.

Meanwhile, in India, caste-based violence has broken out over water access. In neighboring Pakistan, irrigation disagreements have led to clashes.

As additional context, India and Pakistan spent two decades disputing the sharing of Indus River water—vital for key agriculture belts in both countries—before signing a landmark treaty in 1960 to manage it.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

In 1798, Samuel Taylor Coleridge first published “Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink,” in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In 2023 we decided to visualize the sentiment. Check out: Visualizing Countries by Share of the Earth’s Surface to see how the oceans dwarf all the land.

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