This category includes all causes of death connected with the heart and the cardiovascular system which distributes blood throughout the body.

Over 6.6 million people died from cardiovascular diseases between 1981 and 2004 inclusive – 44% of all deaths. More than half (56%) of these deaths were due to heart attacks and chronic heart disease. The deaths are fairly evenly split between males and females.

This most important group of causes of death in terms of absolute numbers of people dying before very old age is also the group with one of the clearest geographical patterns. Risks rise as you move north and into cities, with the peak being within the very centre of Glasgow. Risks are lowest in parts of Oxford and Reading; in Surrey; within London to the west by the banks of the Thames; and in the commuting lands between Bristol and Southampton.

The spatial distribution as a whole is almost smooth enough that it could be mistaken for a topographic landscape, were London a hill rather than in a hollow. It is the variations shown here that account for the largest part of the national variation in all-cause mortality, and underlying these variations are social, economic and historical patterns that have long antecedents. In terms of cardiovascular mortality, the north–south divide that runs from the Bristol Channel, skirting under Coventry, through the north of Nottingham and entering the sea with the Humber estuary just south of Hull, is clear.