famine

Widespread scarcity of food followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality

EntityQ168247

Also known as food shortage

Subclass of: disaster
, food crisis
, deficiency

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several possible factors, including, but not limited to: war, natural disasters, crop failure, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every inhabited continent in the world has experienced a period of famine throughout history. In historical and modern data, the Americas have been among the least famine-affected regions globally. During the 19th and 20th centuries, China, India, Europe, and the Middle East suffered the greatest number of fatalities due to famine. Deaths caused by famine declined sharply beginning in the 1970s, with numbers falling further since 2000. In 2011, millions in East Africa were affected by famine. As of 2025, Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan, Yemen, Gaza, and Syria have experienced famine.

Overview

All data

78 statements · 18% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Permanent duplicated item: Q25554940
Cause: population growth
starvation
Different from: Hungersnot
Category for eponymous categories: Category:Wikipedia categories named after famines

On other databases

68 identifiers linking famine across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

18%

externally sourced

Source last edited October 16, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). famine (Q168247). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/famine-Q168247