The Iraq Death Toll, State By State

Rural states are paying the highest personal price in the Iraq War.

The funeral of U.S. Army Sgt. Gary Brent Coleman, 24, in Pikeville, KY, 11/30/03
Photo: Shawn Poynter, for AP

The country is waging a war, but the war isn't being waged equally. The death toll in North Dakota and Vermont, for example, is about five times that of Washington, D.C.

It is not surprising that the more rural states are the ones with the highest death rates. (To calculate a death rate, we divided the number of men and women killed from a state by the total number of people in the state of military age. Death rates are given in number of casualties per million people of military age.) Rural communities have a considerably higher rate of casualties than U.S. cities. (See this report from the Carsey Institute [1].)

The ten states with the highest death rates are Idaho, Delaware, Alaska, Maine, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota and Vermont.

The states with the lowest rates: Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Utah, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and D.C.

Anybody notice a pattern here?

Below is a numerical listing of all U.S. states' casualties in the Iraq War, ranked from the lowest death rate to the highest.

Rank	State	Number of Deaths	Death Rate per million population 18-54
1	Washington, DC	4	11.9
2	New Jersey	61	13.7
3	Connecticut	28	15.7
4	New York	169	16.7
5	Utah	21	17.8
6	Rhode Island	10	17.9
7	Massachusetts	66	19.2
8	Minnesota	52	19.7
9	Illinois	134	20.2
10	Florida	163	20.5
11	North Carolina	90	20.5
12	California	384	20.9
13	Colorado	55	22.5
14	Washington	73	22.7
15	Georgia	104	22.8
16	Maryland	68	23.7
17	Missouri	71	24.4
18	Hawaii	16	24.7
19	Michigan	132	25.1
20	South Carolina	54	25.2
21	Alabama	59	25.3
22	Tennessee	79	25.9
23	Virginia	103	26.3
24	Indiana	85	26.4
25	Ohio	157	26.4
26	Kentucky	59	27.2
27	Wisconsin	79	27.9
28	Kansas	39	27.9
29	Pennsylvania	176	27.9
30	Texas	320	28.3
31	West Virginia	27	28.6
32	Iowa	43	28.7
33	New Mexico	29	30.9
34	Mississippi	48	32.4
35	Oklahoma	58	32.5
36	Nevada	35	32.5
37	Arkansas	45	33.0
38	Arizona	89	33.5
39	Louisiana	79	33.6
40	New Hampshire	23	34.4
41	Oregon	65	35.5
42	Idaho	24	35.7
43	Delaware	15	36.1
44	Alaska	15	38.4
45	Maine	26	39.0
46	Wyoming	11	41.9
47	Nebraska	38	42.8
48	Montana	20	42.9
49	South Dakota	18	47.2
50	North Dakota	17	51.0
51	Vermont	19	58.1


	Total	3,655	24