How Many People Died In New York On 9/11? The Death Toll, 25 Years Later, Explained This Anniversary

NEW YORK — Of the 2,977 people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks across the United States, 2,753 died in New York City, the overwhelming majority of them at the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan, according to figures compiled by Encyclopaedia Britannica and confirmed across historical reporting on the attacks.

The New York death toll includes 343 firefighters and paramedics from the Fire Department of the City of New York, who were killed largely when the Twin Towers collapsed while emergency crews were still working inside the buildings to evacuate survivors. Beyond the World Trade Center itself, the overall nationwide death toll of 2,977, a figure that does not include the 19 hijackers who carried out the attacks, also encompasses 184 people killed at the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., and 40 people who died aboard United Airlines Flight 93 after it crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Arriving at a final, precise death toll for the World Trade Center attack specifically proved to be a lengthy and complicated process in the years immediately following Sept. 11, 2001. In the initial chaotic days and weeks after the attacks, official estimates of the dead and missing fluctuated dramatically, at times reaching as high as 6,886 missing-person reports, according to reporting from NBC News. That figure gradually declined over subsequent months and years as officials worked to eliminate duplicate reports, confirm identities, and remove names of individuals who were later found to be alive or whose deaths could not be definitively confirmed as connected to the attacks.

By late September 2001, roughly two weeks after the attacks, New York City officials were already working to reconcile competing death toll figures, with police officials at one point citing a total of 3,702 dead and missing tied to the World Trade Center, while the mayor's office cited a separate figure of 3,899, according to contemporaneous reporting from CBS News. That process of revision and reconciliation continued for years afterward, with the New York City medical examiner's office eventually settling on a figure of 2,749 World Trade Center deaths at one point, according to a report cited by NBC News, before further adjustments brought the officially recognized total to the 2,753 figure now widely cited today.

The 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York City currently honors a combined total of 2,983 names, a figure that includes not only those killed in the 2001 attacks but also six people killed in the earlier Feb. 26, 1993, bombing of the World Trade Center, carried out by individuals associated with the same broader terrorist network responsible for the 2001 attacks.

Those killed at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, represented far more than just American citizens. According to accounts of the attacks, victims came from more than 90 different nations, reflecting the World Trade Center's status as a major global business hub employing workers with connections spanning the world.

The official death toll from the World Trade Center attack, while devastating in scale, has continued to grow in a different sense in the years since 2001, as thousands of first responders, cleanup workers and residents who were exposed to toxic dust and debris at Ground Zero have since died from related illnesses, including various cancers and respiratory conditions. According to NPR, the number of FDNY firefighters and paramedics who have died from 9/11-related illnesses in the years since the attacks has now grown to equal the 343 who were killed on the day of the attacks itself, a milestone reflecting the attacks' continuing, expanding toll on the emergency responder community even a quarter-century later.

Broader estimates of 9/11-related deaths across all affected populations, including first responders, residents, office workers and cleanup crews, have placed the total number of subsequent illness-related deaths at approximately 9,000 people over the 25 years since the attacks, according to figures cited in coverage of this year's anniversary commemorations, a toll that now exceeds the original death count from the day of the attacks themselves.

The scale of the World Trade Center's losses has occasionally been placed in comparison with other major tragedies affecting New York City in the years since. During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020, New York City's coronavirus death toll surpassed the number of people killed in the city on 9/11, with the Associated Press reporting at the time that at least 3,202 people had died from the virus in the city, compared with the 2,753 killed in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center specifically. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo reflected at the time on how the psychological impact of 9/11 had shaped the city and country's sense of vulnerability in the years since, even as the emerging pandemic represented a different, more prolonged kind of crisis.

The names of those killed in the World Trade Center attacks continue to be read aloud each year during the annual memorial ceremony held at the National September 11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan, a tradition that has continued uninterrupted since the attacks and remains a central element of the city's annual commemoration. This year's ceremony, marking the 25th anniversary of the attacks, included the reading of all 2,983 names honored by the memorial, along with a newly added moment of silence specifically recognizing those who have died from 9/11-related illnesses in the years since, reflecting the continued, evolving toll the attacks have taken on New York City and the broader country over the past quarter-century.