Missing People in the United States

Missing-persons cases from the past 5 years, drawn from the reporting of the Black and Missing Foundation, Inc., TheGrio, plotted below. Use the dropdowns to search by state, time frame, or group by age, sex, or race. Tap or click any marker for the full case, a source link, and a NamUs verification link. This page does not add, alter, or infer any detail not stated in the source outlet’s own reporting — race is left “Unknown” unless the source article states it explicitly.

Below that sits a second, wider map: a heat map of every active case the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children currently publishes nationwide. The first map is who; the heat map is where. Filter it and zoom into your own county or city.

State

Time frame

Group by

Tap or click a marker on the map to see full case details and a source link here.

What the case reports show

These charts are rebuilt from the same cases plotted above every time this page updates. Each one states the number of cases it is drawn from, and each is limited to details the source articles actually report -- where an article does not say, the case is counted as unknown or left out of that chart rather than estimated.

n=19 cases. Counts the year each case was first reported by TheGrio and the Black and Missing Foundation, the sources linked on every marker above. This is coverage volume on this page, not a count of how many people went missing that year; no national total is implied.

n=6 of 19 cases -- only those whose own source article states a last-seen date. The date comes from that article's wording ('last seen', 'missing since'), never from the article's publication date. Cases with no stated date are left out entirely rather than estimated.

n=6 of 19 cases with a stated last-seen date. Only 1 of those articles give a clock time, which is too few to chart time of day without misleading -- that half of the pattern appears here automatically once at least 6 cases report one. Day of week alone is not evidence of a cause.

n=19 cases. Age, sex and race are taken only from explicit statements in each case's own article -- never inferred from a name, a photo, or which outlet published it. 'Unknown' means the article did not say (10 age group, 10 sex, 7 race unstated).

n=19 cases, by the state named in each case's own article. This reflects where TheGrio and the Black and Missing Foundation has reported cases, not where Black Americans go missing most -- a state's absence here means no case from it is on this page.

Where cases concentrate

The map above plots individual cases this site has verified one by one. This one is the wider picture: every active case the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children currently publishes, 3,478 of them, drawn as a density map so you can see where they cluster. Use the filters to narrow it, then pinch, scroll or drag to zoom all the way into your own county and city.

State

Race

Sex

Age when missing

Decade went missing

Source: active case records published by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), retrieved September 13, 2026; 3,478 cases plotted. Coordinates are from the U.S. Census Bureau 2024 Gazetteer, matched on the city or county NCMEC lists for each case — each point is that place's centre, not an exact last-seen location. 139 case(s) NCMEC lists could not be matched to a place and are not plotted. Brighter areas mean more recorded cases, which tracks population as well as risk: a dense metro will glow more than a rural county with a higher per-person rate. Read it as where cases are, not as where danger is highest.

The counties with the most active NCMEC cases under the filters you have chosen. Counts follow population closely — this ranks where cases are recorded, not per-person risk. 345 of these cases carry no county in NCMEC's record, so they appear on the map above but not in this ranking.

If you have information about any case above, contact the Black and Missing Foundation at 1-877-972-2634, or submit/search a case directly at namus.gov. See our related Strange Fruit coverage for individual case updates.