The Boxer Rebellion

125,000

estimated total dead

Each dot below represents 1,000 human lives. Scroll to watch the scale unfold.

Military Dead

25,000 soldiers killed in combat, from wounds, or from disease. Each = 1,000 lives.

Boxers & Qing Empire — 22,000 military dead

Eight-Nation Alliance — 3,000 military dead

Civilian Dead

100,000 civilians killed — from violence, famine, disease, and displacement. Wars are not fought only by soldiers.

Civilian dead — 100,000

Deadliest Engagements

The Boxer Uprising45,000

incl. 40,000 civilians

The Sack of Peking and Punitive Expeditions33,000

incl. 30,000 civilians

The Russian Invasion of Manchuria30,000

incl. 20,000 civilians

The Relief of Peking6,000

incl. 3,000 civilians

Battle of Tientsin4,500

incl. 2,000 civilians

The Siege of the International Legations3,000

incl. 500 civilians

The Relief March1,500

Battle of the Taku Forts900

For Perspective

How Boxer Rebellion's dead compare to other conflicts and events.

Boxer Rebellion — total dead125,000

Foreign missionaries killed250

Chinese Christians killed (est.)30,000

Legation defenders (soldiers + civilians)900

Boxer indemnity (millions of taels of silver)450

Milestones of Loss

450 dead

The 450-million-tael indemnity was deliberately set at roughly one tael for every subject of the Qing Empire, as a calculated national humiliation.

20,000 dead

Russia's occupation of Manchuria included the notorious Blagoveshchensk massacre, in which thousands of Chinese civilians were driven into or drowned in the Amur River.

30,000 dead

Estimates of Chinese Christians killed by the Boxers range from about 20,000 (mostly Catholic converts) upward; some 250 foreign missionaries and their families also died.

All figures are historical estimates and vary across sources. The true human cost of war is impossible to fully quantify — these numbers represent the best scholarly consensus. Each number was a person with a name, a family, and a life unlived.