This is the third edition of the Global Terrorism Index, which provides a comprehensive summary of the key global trends and patterns in terrorism over the last 15 years with a special emphasis on 2014.

This report provides a detailed analysis of the changing trends in terrorism since 2000, for 162 countries. It investigates the changing patterns of terrorism by geographic activity, methods of attack, organisations involved and the national economic and political context. The GTI has also been compared to a range of socio- economic indicators to determine the key underlying factors that have the closest statistical relationship to terrorism.

In 2014 the total number of deaths from terrorism increased by 80 per cent when compared to the prior year. This is the largest yearly increase in the last 15 years. Since the beginning of the 21st century, there has been over a nine-fold increase in the number of deaths from terrorism, rising from 3,329 in 2000 to 32,658 in 2014.

Terrorism remains highly concentrated with most of the activity occurring in just five countries — Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria. These countries accounted for 78 per cent of the lives lost in 2014. Although highly concentrated, terrorism is spreading to more countries, with the number of countries experiencing more than 500 deaths increasing from five to 11, a 120 per cent increase from the previous year. The six new countries with over 500 deaths are Somalia, Ukraine, Yemen, Central African Republic, South Sudan and Cameroon.