UK areas with highest death rates revealed in new map - see how your town compares

Residents of seaside resort Blackpool had more chance of dying last year than people living anywhere else in England and Wales, troubling show.

The official data highlights around 581,000 deaths were registered in 2023 in England and Wales. Of these, approximately 292,000 were men and around 285,000 were women. It is the third consecutive year in which more men died than women across the two nations.

And there were around 0.7% more deaths across England and Wales in 2023 than in 2022, the numbers show. However, some places have markedly greater mortality rates than others - and many of these are northern cities and towns.

For every 100,000 people living in Blackpool, there were 1,370 deaths last year. That’s the equivalent of more than one in 100 chance of dying in the year. It is also the highest age-standardised mortality rate in England and Wales. Blackpool also had the highest mortality rate among men (1,618 deaths per 100,000 of the male population) and women (1,158 deaths per 100,000 of the female population).

You can see how it compares to where you live using our interactive map below.

The Office for National Statistics uses “age-standardised mortality rates” to compare areas with different population sizes and age demographics. Using this rate, Blackpool is followed by Blaenau Gwent in Wales (1,303 deaths per 100,000 of the overall population), and then (1,287).

Barnet in north London had the lowest overall mortality rate in the country, with 732 deaths per 100,000 of the population. However, Surrey Heath just outside the capital had the lowest rate for men (851 deaths per 100,000 males), and posh Richmond upon Thames, southwest London for women (599 deaths per 100,00 females).

The age-standardised mortality rate was higher in Wales (1,053 deaths per 100,000 population) than in England (964). Of English regions, the highest mortality rate was in the North East (1,101) and the lowest was in London (869).

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Records going back as far as 1838 show there were more deaths in England and Wales in 1918 than any other year (612,000), due to the twin horrors of the First World War and the “Spanish flu” pandemic.

The year with the second-highest number of deaths was 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, when there were nearly 608,000 deaths.
However, the population of England and Wales was much higher in 2020 than it was a century earlier in 1918.

The “crude mortality rate” takes into account population rises over time. It shows that, apart from a spike in 2020, the mortality rate has generally fallen over time.

Last year, there were the equivalent of 955 deaths for every 100,000 of the population, compared to 958 the previous year, 983 in 2021, and 1,023 in 2020. When records began in 1838, there were the equivalent of 2,242 deaths for every 100,000 people, more than double the mortality rate today.