The figure is the first official toll given for the conflict, which has pitched heavily armed gangs from rival nomadic and farming communities against one another in a battle for land and power, and far exceeds previous estimates.
Officials said that the figure was compiled from reports from the victims' relatives and covered the period from September 7, 2001 to May 18 of this year, when President Olusegun Obasanjo imposed emergency rule on the highland region.
"They were killed as a result of the hostilities, some through machetes or bullets, some from other things," said Ezekiel Dalyop, the spokesman for Plateau's administrator Chris Alli.
"The committee visited the local governments and met with officials. Those who lost their relatives provided the statistics. Every family has figures and released them to the committee. We just did the summary," he told AFP.
Alli's special advisor on resettlement and rehabilitation, Thomas Kangnaan, on Wednesday told reporters in the state capital Jos that of those killed, 18,931 were men, 17,397 were women and 17,459 were children.
But some in Plateau said that the figures, which are greater than any estimate given by an outside agency, appear too high, and suggested that Alli's team may be exaggerating the death toll in order to remain in power.
In May, Obasanjo suspended Plateau's elected governor, Joshua Dariye, and brought in Alli, a former general and military administrator, to run the state under emergency powers and a mandate to disarm ethnic militia.
Dariye's suspension is due to expire on November 18 and the state is divided over whether he should be allowed to return. Some saw the announcement of the death toll as a means of emphasising the failures of his previous rule.
"I don't think it is reliable. The source is not very clear, some people might be just missing, some others have left," said Paul Wai of the pressure group the Middle Belt Progressive Movement, which opposes emergency rule.
"The administrator has to justify his being here, that is why we are suspicious. So it might be a wrong information, it might not be the exact figure," he added.
Plateau State lies in Nigeria's notoriously unruly central belt, the faultline between northern mainly Muslim tribes and the Christian south.
In recent years tension has been growing between the nomads and settlers migrating south from the arid region bordering the Sahel semi-desert towards Plateau's more fertile highlands and the Benue river valley.
In September 2001 sectarian riots broke out in the state capital Jos, claiming almost 1,000 lives in five days and beginning a round of bloodletting that endured until Obasanjo stepped in in May.
"The crisis in Plateau was a total devastation for the economy and the lives of the people, and that is why the issue of peace is critical," Dalyop said.
In addition to the killings, some 200,000 people were driven from their homes during the fighting. More than 80 percent have now returned, Dalyop said.
Kangnaan said that 25,129 homes and 865 shops were burned and 1,326 cattle lost to rustlers during the fighting. Alli's administration estimates that goods worth 130 million naira (990,000 dollars / 805,000 euros) were destroyed.
Plateau State's population is estimated at between three and four million although no census has been carried out since 1991.
