Here Are The Countries With The Worst Suicide Rates

Suicide is a tragedy that occurs in all times and places. However, suicide rates vary around the world, so we made a map showing these differences.

For most of the countries shown in the map below, suicide rate data comes from the World Health Organization. The WHO's mortality database is based on reports from governmental agencies from different countries. Most of the WHO data thus comes from more developed countries.

For developing countries, numerous political, cultural, and religious hurdles make getting accurate information on suicide much more difficult.

We were able to find estimates for suicide rates for China and India, not contained in the WHO data set. A widely referenced 2011 AFP article reported a rate for China of about 22.2 deaths per 100,000 people, and a survey published in the Lancet in 2012 estimated a rate of about 22.0 deaths per 100,000 people in India.

Suicides are most prominent in Asia and Eastern Europe. Lithuania has the highest suicide rate among the countries for which we have data, with 28.6 suicide deaths per 100,000 people, followed closely by South Korea with 26.3 deaths per 100,000 people.

Here's the map:

Business Insider/Andy Kiersz, data from WHO, AFP, and the Lancet

Here's each of the countries in the map, along with their most recently available suicide rates in deaths per 100,000 population, and the year the data comes from: