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Global Terrorism Database (GTD)

Overview of the GTD The Global Terrorism Database™ (GTD) is an open-source database including information on terrorist events around the world from 1970 through 2020. Unlike many other event databases, the GTD includes systematic data on domestic as well as transnational and international terrorist incidents that have occurred during this time period and now includes more than 200,000 cases. For each GTD incident, information is available on the date and location of the incident, the weapons used and nature of the target, the number of casualties, and--when identifiable--the group or...

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PublisherUniversity of Maryland
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Updated2026-06-26
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terrorismattackwaroccurrenceintelligence assessment

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Landing Pagehttps://www.start.umd.edu/data-tools/GTD
Spatialworld
Temporal19700101-20200101
Wikidata Advanced Relationsperpétrateur ou perpétratrice (P8031); date (P585)
Access Account RequiredYes
Rate Limit DeclaredNo
Access Cost TypeFree
Pricing Modelfree open access
Legal Risk LevelLow
Legal Risk NotesEven though efforts have been made to assure the continuity of the data from 1970 to the present, users should keep in mind that the collection was done in real time for cases between 1970 and 1997, was retrospective between 1998 and 2007, and is again in near real time from 2007 through 2020. This distinction is significant because some media sources have since become unavailable, undoubtedly impeding efforts to collect a complete census of terrorist attacks between 1998 and 2007. Moreover, since moving the ongoing collection of the GTD to the University of Maryland in the Spring of 2012, START staff have made significant improvements to the methodology that is used to compile the database. These changes, which are described both in the GTD codebook and in this START Discussion Point on The Benefits and Drawbacks of Methodological Advancements in Data Collection and Coding: Insights from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), have improved the comprehensiveness of the database. Thus, users should note that differences in levels of attacks and casualties before and after January 1, 1998, before and after April 1, 2008, and before and after January 1, 2012, are at least partially explained by differences in data collection; researchers should adjust for these differences when modeling the data. Furthermore, cases from 1993 were lost prior to receiving the data from PGIS. Efforts thus far have been unsuccessful in fully recovering the 1993 data. Instead of providing a partial listing of cases for 1993, we refer the user to a table provided by PGIS of the total number of attacks in 1993 for each country (see the GTD Codebook's Appendix).
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50 Years of Terrorist Attacks