Studies by O'Carroll and Mercy and by Kowalski and Petee challenge the long‐held view that the South leads the nation in homicide rates. Specifically, O'Carroll and Mercy find that when killings by state are disaggregated by race, the West has the highest levels of homicide for whites, blacks, and other races. Kowalski and Petee conclude that homicide rates in the South and the West have converged. We extend their research by examining the effect, on levels of killing, of metropolitan concentration of black and white populations within states and of the percentage of the white population of Hispanic origin within SMSAs. Results of these analyses show that the homicide rate for non‐Hispanic whites remains highest in the South; no clear regional pattern exists for bla