# Military/Civilian casualty ratio in 20th century wars

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-civilian-casualty-ratio-in-20th-century-wars/139227>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 27, 2002, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-civilian-casualty-ratio-in-20th-century-wars/139227 "2002-11-27T22:42:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\
**Post date:** [November 27, 2002, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-civilian-casualty-ratio-in-20th-century-wars/139227/1 "2002-11-27T22:42:04Z")

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For the big conflicts of the last century eg WWI and II, of all fatalities what were the approximate proportions of the dead who were civilian? Do the figures get better or worse for internal conflicts?

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**Author:** ![jimmmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)\
**Post date:** [November 28, 2002, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-civilian-casualty-ratio-in-20th-century-wars/139227/2 "2002-11-28T00:57:04Z")

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Wow. A Meaning of life Question(ie BIG QUESTION).

I doubt you are going to get a definitive answer: **a)** because there is such a wide range in estimating death toll in all wars. For instance here is WWII, all the sources are more or less reputable.

[http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/ww2stats.htm](http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/ww2stats.htm)

\*\*b)\*_you will find the short answer to the proportion part of your question is place and time. For instance, in WWII the rough estimate in China is 3X the number of civilans killed vs. military, \* while in the exact same war,_ in the U.S. the ratio was at least 20 to 1 military deaths.  
There is no one answer to proportion that tells the story beyond bunching all these disparate places together and getting a (IMO) meaningless average.

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**Author:** ![jimmmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)\
**Post date:** [November 28, 2002, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-civilian-casualty-ratio-in-20th-century-wars/139227/3 "2002-11-28T01:07:39Z")

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That’d be 10 to 1 in the US in WWII. D’oh.

Here’s yet another site with widly differing numbers, (re point “a” above) but in a handy table format to run the proprtions yourself  
[http://www.hitler.org/ww2-deaths.html](http://www.hitler.org/ww2-deaths.html)