Global Volcano Mortality Risks and Distribution is a 2.5 minute grid representing global volcano mortality risks. The data set was constructed using historical hazard-specific mortality loss data from the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) maintained by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), subnational year 2000 population estimates from Gridded Population of the World, Version 3 (GPWv3), and volcano hazard data from the Global Volcano Hazard Frequency and Distribution data set. Estimates were made as to the mortality numbers associated with volcano hazard. In turn, these mortality estimates were classified into deciles, 10 class of an approximately equal number of grid cells of increasing mortality risk. This data set is the result of collaboration among the Columbia University Center for Hazards and Risk Research (CHRR), International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, and Columbia University Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN).