Global Terrorism Database

web

start.umd.edu·start.umd.edu/gtd/

Primarily a terrorism research dataset; tangentially relevant to AI safety for researchers studying catastrophic risk scenarios, misuse of AI by extremist actors, or benchmarking threat modeling frameworks.

Metadata

Importance: 30/100dataset

Summary

The Global Terrorism Database (GTD) is an open-source database maintained by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland, containing information on over 200,000 terrorist attacks worldwide from 1970 through the present. It is the most comprehensive unclassified database on terrorist events in the world, providing detailed information on each incident including date, location, weapons used, nature of the target, and casualties. The GTD serves as a critical resource for researchers and policymakers studying political violence and terrorism trends.

Key Points

•Contains data on 200,000+ terrorist attacks globally from 1970 to present, making it the largest open-source terrorism dataset available.
•Each event record includes over 100 variables covering attack type, weapons, targets, casualties, perpetrators, and outcomes.
•Maintained by the START Center at University of Maryland and updated annually with peer-reviewed methodology.
•Used extensively by governments, academics, and security researchers to analyze trends in political violence and inform counter-terrorism policy.
•Relevant to AI safety as a reference dataset for studying catastrophic risks, mis/disinformation, and dual-use technology misuse patterns.

Cited by 1 page

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Collection: Wikipedia Eventstream

 

 

 

 

 
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The Wayback Machine - http://web.archive.org/web/20241203075916/https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/

 
 

 

 

 
Overview

 
History

 
GTD Team

 
GTD In The News
 

 
I'm a New User

 
Data Collection Methodology

 
Download GTD

 
Codebook (PDF)

 
Citing GTD

 
GTD in Research

 
Terms

 
Citing GTD

 
Contact GTD Team

 
Download GTD

 
Media Inquiries

 

 

 
 

 
 
 
 

 

 

 
I'm a New User

 
 

 
 
 Browse by:
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Information on more than 200,000 Terrorist Attacks

 
The Global Terrorism Database&trade; (GTD) is an open-source database including information on terrorist events around the world from 1970 through 2020 (with annual updates planned for the future). Unlike many other event databases, the GTD includes systematic data on domestic as well as international terrorist incidents that have occurred during this time period and now includes more than 200,000 cases. Learn more

 Read more about Global Terrorism in 2017

 

 
 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 
GTD DATA VISUALIZATIONS

 

The updated GTD WebGL Globe is an interactive geographic visualization, currently in beta, that plots the location and frequency of yearly terrorist attacks worldwide from 1970-2014. It was developed by START using the WebGL Globe open platform created by the Google Data Arts Team. Automated geocoding from the OpenCage Geocoder supplements the geocoding available in the public dataset.

Our updated 2020 GTD Heat Map shows the geographic concentration and intensity of terrorist attacks that occurred worldwide in 2020. Note that intensity is calculated based on the number or people killed or injured in each attack.

View GTD heatmap visualizations from previous years

 

Periscopic, a data visualization firm that promotes information transparency and public awareness, has produced an innovative, interactive tool that allows users to explore the impact and dynamics of GTD perpetrator groups. A World of Terror examines the 25 perpetrators that were most active between 1970 and 2013, visualizing their attack patterns across multiple dimensions including life span, recency, casualties, and geographic spread.

The GTD Data Rivers 2.0 application is an interactive visualization tool that allows users to explore patterns of terrorism in the Global Terrorism Database (GTD). The GTD Data Rivers aggregates information from the database and displays relative temporal trends as a stack chart.

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FEATURED

 

 

 
Data Update: A Look Back at 2020

 

 
Data through 2020 are now available. G

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