State crime profile · 2024

North Dakota Crime Rates: Safest & Most Dangerous Cities

Crime data for 23 cities and 31 of 53 counties in North Dakota (ND), ranked safest to most dangerous from 111 reporting agencies.

Data updated 2026-09-05

256.7
Violent / 100K
1,705.7
Property / 100K
23
Cities
31
Counties

North Dakota violent crime is 256.7 per 100,000, 27% below the U.S. average

According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, North Dakota records 256.7 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, 27% below the national average (about the 18th-safest of 51 states and D.C.). Statewide averages hide city and county variation; UCR participation is voluntary.

  • 256.7 violent crimes per 100K
  • -27% vs. the U.S. average
  • 18th safest of 51 states & DC
  • 1,705.7 property crimes per 100K

How safe is North Dakota? FBI UCR data snapshot

North Dakota (ND) reported 2,045 violent crimes and 13,587 property crimes in 2024, based on FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program submissions from 111 law enforcement agencies. That translates to a statewide violent crime rate of 256.7 per 100,000 residents and a property crime rate of 1705.7 per 100,000 against a reporting population of 796,568. The PlainCrime dataset indexes 23 North Dakota cities and 31 counties, each with their own detail pages and local crime figures drawn from FBI UCR Tables 8 and 10.

The FBI's state-level summary reports violent and property crime as aggregate totals rather than broken out by individual offense type (murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, arson). For an offense-by-offense breakdown, see the individual city and county pages for North Dakota below, which draw on FBI UCR Tables 8 and 10 and do report each offense type separately.

Across 11 years of state-level UCR history (2014–2024), the violent crime rate moved from 269 to 256.7 per 100,000, a decline of 4.6%. City-level detail pages within North Dakota include safety grades (A+ to F), benchmarks against national averages, per-capita risk estimates, and multi-year trend tables for users comparing specific jurisdictions. All figures above are drawn from FBI UCR 2024 submissions; reporting completeness varies by agency, and the FBI periodically restates prior-year figures as late submissions arrive.

How North Dakota ranks nationally

North Dakota vs. every U.S. state

Violent crime per 100,000 residents, FBI UCR 2024. Lower is safer.

257 Safer than 65% among 51 U.S. states

ND 0 1,100+ every state & DC, bucketed by value

Each bar is a band of values; taller bars hold more U.S. states. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.

Source FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · 2024

Safest cities · Most dangerous cities · Crime trends

Crime Trends

Year Population Violent Crime Rate Property Crime Rate
2024 796,568 2,045 256.7 13,587 1705.7
2023 783,926 2,208 281.7 15,420 1967
2022 779,261 2,241 287.6 15,869 2036.4
2021 774,948 2,036 262.7 16,585 2140.1
2020 765,309 2,569 335.7 16,419 2145.4
2019 761,894 2,163 283.9 15,138 1986.9
2018 760,077 2,049 269.6 15,447 2032.3
2017 755,393 2,130 282 16,705 2211.4
2016 757,952 1,904 251.2 17,529 2312.7
2015 756,927 1,925 254.3 17,723 2341.4
2014 739,482 1,989 269 16,036 2168.5

Cities in North Dakota

Safest cities in North Dakota

Cities with 25,000+ residents, lowest violent crime per 100,000, FBI UCR 2024. Hover a bar for the exact rate.

/100K

What this shows West Fargo is the safest sizeable city in North Dakota, at 163.8 violent crimes per 100,000.

Source FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program As of 2024

Highest violent-crime cities in North Dakota

Cities with 25,000+ residents, highest violent crime per 100,000, FBI UCR 2024. Hover a bar for the exact rate.

/100K

What this shows Fargo reports the highest big-city violent-crime rate in North Dakota, at 498.2 per 100,000.

Source FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program As of 2024

Fargo is both volume #1 and rate #1 among 6 North Dakota cities with 25,000+ residents in FBI UCR 2024. That non-invert is disclosed, not hidden.

North Dakota's largest cities, violent vs. property crime. X axis violent crime per 100K, Y axis property crime per 100K, split by the national averages. 6 cities; the anchor is ringed. North Dakota's largest cities, violent vs. property crime 147 538 Violent crime per 100K → 913 3,993 Property crime per 100K → Fargo Bismarck Grand Forks Minot SAFEST HIGHEST CRIME PROPERTY-HEAVY VIOLENT-HEAVY Safety grade A / B C D / F
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are North Dakota's statewide averages · the four largest cities are labeled
Read the chart as a list
  • Fargo: 498 violent, 3697 property per 100,000 (grade F)
  • Bismarck: 278 violent, 2400 property per 100,000 (grade C)
  • Grand Forks: 359 violent, 2282 property per 100,000 (grade C)
  • Minot: 319 violent, 1403 property per 100,000 (grade C)
  • West Fargo: 164 violent, 1014 property per 100,000 (grade A)
  • Williston: 437 violent, 2315 property per 100,000 (grade D)
C

North Dakota safety livability score: 55/100

Percentile-benchmarked against all 51 tracked states, 2024 FBI UCR data.

  • Violent crime rate

    256.7/100K · C (65th percentile)

  • Property crime rate

    1705.7/100K · D (41th percentile)

  • Murder rate

    N/A, dropped from score, weight redistributed

City Population Violent / 100K Grade
Fargo 135,682
498.2
F
Bismarck 75,546
278
C
Grand Forks 58,848
358.6
C
Minot 47,041
318.9
C
West Fargo 40,915
163.8
A
Williston 27,211
437.3
D
Dickinson 24,910
297.1
C
Mandan 24,711
287.3
C
Jamestown 15,651
102.2
A
Wahpeton 7,995
237.6
C
Valley City 6,541
152.9
A
Watford City 5,949
302.6
C
Lincoln 4,479
67
A
Grafton 4,027
49.7
A+
Beulah 3,027
99.1
A
Lisbon 2,164
92.4
A
Stanley 2,133
187.5
B
Tioga 2,060
145.6
A
Carrington 1,987
50.3
A+
Bowman 1,394
71.7
A
Rolla 1,148
87.1
A
Wishek 837
119.5
A
Steele 648
0
A+

Counties in North Dakota

31 of 53 Census county-equivalents (58.5%) appear in FBI Table 10 for this vintage. Missing counties are absent from the FBI source for this year, not dropped by PlainCrime. See national county coverage and methodology.

Largest counties in North Dakota, violent crime per 100K

The 7 of the 8 largest counties with complete FBI agency coverage, violent crime per 100,000 residents. Hover a bar for the exact rate.

/100K
Source FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program As of 2024

Not charted (Incomplete report): Cass. Its 2024 FBI agency coverage fails this site's completeness screen, so a rate here would read as unusually safe only because agencies did not report.

Barnes
Benson
Billings
Bottineau
Burleigh
Cass
Cavalier
Dunn
Emmons
Grand Forks
McHenry
McIntosh
McKenzie
McLean
Mercer
Morton
Mountrail
Nelson
Pembina
Ransom
Richland
Rolette
Sargent
Sheridan
Stark
Stutsman
Towner
Traill
Walsh
Ward
Williams

Nationwide peers for North Dakota

Similar violent rate (~256.7/100K)

Similar property rate (~1,705.7/100K)

Nearby States

New York
NY
North Carolina
NC
Ohio
OH
Oklahoma
OK
Oregon
OR

Safest cities · Most dangerous · Trends · National rankings · Crime grades · Compare · Methodology

Primary source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, Crime in the United States annual release. State-level trends cross-check against the FBI Crime Data Explorer (CDE) API.

Population figures for rate calculations reference U.S. Census Bureau estimates where FBI-reported populations are unavailable. Verify with Census.gov QuickFacts.

Read our methodology , how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.

Put this to use

Put the North Dakota FBI UCR state file to work: open a city, a county, or a national ranking built from the same vintage.

Look up a city Municipal rates inside North Dakota Safest states ranking How this state sits on the national violent-rate ladder Compare cities Side-by-side rates for up to 4 cities

A statewide average hides city and county variation: open a local profile before treating the state figure as a place-level verdict.

Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page draws directly on FBI Uniform Crime Reporting source data, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.