- Nov 25, 2021
- 2 min read

The Safest Cities and Safest Nations in the World to Visit in 2022

When the pandemic is finally behind us there is going to be a lot of pent-up demand for global travel. Among the many things that travelers consider when planning their trips is safety, especially if they are new to global travel. Several new studies of foreign destinations examined a variety of metrics to determine the safest cities and countries in the world.

The metrics include more than crime rates. For instance, the Economist's Safe Cities Index [SCI] ranks 60 major cities on such things as health security [good health care systems], infrastructure [safe buildings and transportation], personal security [crime rates], and environmental safety [air and water purity]. This year they found that Copenhagen, Denmark tops the list.

CNN: "One key factor that makes Copenhagen such a safe city is its low crime rate, currently at its lowest level in more than a decade," Lars Weiss, lord mayor of Copenhagen, says in the report."

Weiss attributes their low crime rate to "great social cohesion and a relatively narrow wealth gap. It's is a mixed city where both the cleaning assistant and the CEO meet each other at the local supermarket and have their kids in the same school." Copenhagen is also blessed with little pollution, good hospitals, and a modern infrastructure.

Toronto, Canada came in a close second with Singapore taking third place. Rounding out the top five, Sydney, Australia took forth while 2019 winner Tokyo claimed fifth place.

New York was the safest US city on the list, sharing the 11th spot with Barcelona, Spain.

Washington DC was close behind in 14th place, while London and San Francisco tied at 15th.

At the very bottom of the list, Nigeria's Lagos, Egypt's Cairo, Venezuela's Caracas, Pakistan's Karachi and Myanmar's Yangon were the least safe cities.

Safest Countries:

the Institute for Economics and Peace [IEP] publishes an annual Global Peace Index which ranks countries based on a variety of factors such as violent crime rates, war, press and speech freedoms, terrorism, and natural disasters to rank the safest nations to visit.

Iceland remains the most peaceful country in the world with an almost nonexistent murder rate and no internal strife. It has topped the list since 2008 when the Institute for Economics and Peace started publishing the index.

Here are the IEP’s ten safest and ten most dangerous countries:

Most dangerous: