England and Wales’ death hotspots MAPPED as official statistics show mortality rates are twice as high in parts of country

Blaenau Gwent, Blackpool and Merthyr Tydfil had the highest death rates in 2022, figures revealed today.

Death rates in the three deprived boroughs were twice as high as in the more affluent boroughs of the City of London, Winchester and Ribble Valley.

An interactive heatmap published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) exposes the divide in both countries.

It reflects a death rate for every 100,000 residents – rather than raw numbers of deaths.

The figure also takes age into account, meaning the results are not skewed by districts where a higher proportion of retirees live.

But it is calculated in a complex way, meaning it does not reflect the exact number of deaths.

A total of 577,160 deaths were recorded in England and Wales in 2022, a decrease of 1.6 percent on the previous year.

But it was vastly lower than the 607,922 toll of 2020, the deadliest year since the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic due to Covid.

Although the total number of deaths from the pandemic has fallen, levels are still above pre-pandemic norms.

Thousands more adults are dying than expected, in a trend blamed on the obesity and NHS crises.

Fascinating ONS data also showed that Covid was the sixth leading cause of death in 2022.

RAW DEATH RATE IN 2022: Although total deaths from the pandemic have fallen, levels are still above pre-pandemic norms

RAW DEATHS BY GENDER: For the third year in a row, more male deaths were recorded than female deaths. Before 2020, the last time this happened was in 1981

AGE-STANDARDIZED DEATH RATES BY GENDER: Death rates have fallen by almost 4 percent among men and 3 percent among women in one year

It was the first time since the virus rocked Britain that it was not number one, with the title instead going back to dementia, which was responsible for 11.5 percent of all deaths.

A geographical breakdown of ONS statistics showed that Blaenau Gwent in South Wales had the highest age-standardized mortality rate (ASMR), with 1,321 deaths per 100,000 residents.

But this cannot be simplified by saying that 1.3 percent of residents died last year. That figure – not reported in the ONS's annual report – will be different.

Blackpool (1,302), Merthyr Tydfil (1,281), Burnley (1,275) and Manchester (1,273) completed the top five.

At the other end of the scale were City of London (648), Winchester (734), Ribble Valley (744), Hart (758) and Westminster (752).