Introduction: Suicide is a serious public health problem.The World Health Organization estimates that between 1950 and 1995 the global rate of suicide increased from 10.1 to 16.0/100.000 hab.In Brazil, the suicide rate ranks in 71th in the world although in absolute numbers in ninth.The most widely used method of suicide in Brazil between 1980 and 2006 was hanging, followed by firearms and poisoning.Objective: This study aims to analyze suicide methods used in Fortaleza, the fourth largest city in Brazil, in the period 2000-2009.Methods: The Ceará Forensic Institute (IML-CE) registered 1979 suicide cases in this period.The variables listed were: Method, gender, age, day of the week, time and place of occurrence.Results: The most frequent suicide method was hanging (n=970; 49%), followed by poisoning (n=487; 24.6%).Males represented the majority of suicides committed by hanging 90% (n=865), by firearm 92.9% (n=169) and stab wound 92.3% (n=12).The only method that women had a higher percentage was burning (n=18; 54.5%).The weekend showed a higher rate of suicide than the weekdays.Sunday was the day which occurred the highest number of hanging (n=183; 19.3%) and poisoning (n =87; 18.1%).The neighbourhoods with the tallest buildings favoured suicide by jumping from height (n =33; 15.8%), which overcame the suicides by poisoning (n =28; 13.4%) in those neighbourhoods.Violent methods has a binary distribution, suicide by firearm occur in the richest neighbourhood as well as in the poorest neighbourhood.Suicide by firearms occurred in the metropolitan area, where the lower economic class live, (n=51; 29.8%), followed by suburban neighbourhood (n=28; 16.4%).Hanging was the most used method in all ages.Conclusion: Males committed more suicides and used more lethal methods.Most suicides occur on weekends, whichever hanging and poisoning.