Want to travel with a peace of mind? Consider some of the cities that have been rated as the world’s safest below.
The Economist Intelligence Unit's 2019 Safe Cities Index (SCI) ranked 60 cities across the world based on various factors, including their digital, health, infrastructure and personal safety.
Tokyo was crowned as the world’s safest for the third time in a row, with a score of 92 points out of 100. Following in number two was Singapore with 91.5 points, while Osaka took the third spot with 90.9 points. These cities maintained their top three positions from the two previous indexes in 2015 and 2017.
Two Australian cities made the Top 10 – Sydney came in at number five with 87.9 points, while Melbourne received 87.3 points to place at number 10.
Two European cities – Amsterdam at the fourth place and Copenhagen tying at number eight with Seoul – completed the list along with two American cities, Toronto and Washington, DC at number six and seven respectively.
“Of the 14 European cities in the Index, only Istanbul and Moscow fall below the average score of 71.2 globally,” Irene Mia, global editorial director of The Economist Intelligence Unit told The Independent.
Meanwhile, Wellington was down from number 16 in 2017 to the 18th place this year.
Hong Kong also dropped from number nine on the list in 2017 to number 20 in this index. The city has been rocked by sometimes-violent political unrest in recent months, leading to a decline in the number of visitor arrivals and flight bookings.
“The situation in Hong Kong is still dynamic, so at this stage of course we cannot say exactly what the impact on the score will be,” said Simon Baptist, global chief economist and managing director for the Unit in Asia.
“If there are sustained attacks on infrastructure, an ongoing increase in political instability, civil unrest or if relations between the police force and the community cannot be repaired, then it is likely that Hong Kong’s score would fall.”
Safe Cities Index 2019:
- Tokyo
- Singapore
- Osaka
- Amsterdam
- Sydney
- Toronto
- Washington, DC
- Copenhagen
- Seoul
- Melbourne