Revealed: Three of the world’s six ‘most dangerous cities’ are in South Africa

Well, let’s hope the Tourism Department doesn’t put this on a billboard anytime soon. The latest figures from Numbeo reveal that South Africa still has some very serious problems in several of its major metros, and out of the top six ‘most dangerous cities on Earth‘, half of the entries are based within our borders.

Where are the most dangerous cities? Right here, apparently…

Numbeo is driven by user-generated data. In this ‘Crime Index’, residents from over 450 cities worldwide were asked to rank the volume of crime in their cities, and rate just how safe they feel living there.

Needless to say, the disparity between criminal activity and safety in South Africa is felt keenly in many of our biggest urban settlements. Pretoria is deemed as Mzansi’s most dangerous city – and comes second on the global list, beaten only by the lawlessness reported in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas.

Johannesburg comes in at #4, with Durban completing the top six. If we branch out a little further, Cape Town ranks in 18th place on the worldwide table, meaning that SA is home four of the top 20 most dangerous cities on the planet.

TABLE: Top 20 ‘most dangerous cities’ revealed

The fact that residents in Kabul say they feel safer than residents in either Pretoria, Johannesburg, or Durban says it all. Only Brazil has more individual entries into the top 20, whereas the criminal havens of Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea) and San Pedro Sula (Honduras) complete the leading five.

South Africa also ranks terribly as a country

But wait, there’s more. The same metrics have been applied to 133 other nations, and South Africa comes out as the third-most dangerous country featured in the survey. Venezuela and Papua New Guinea make up the top two, with Afghanistan and Honduras ranked fourth and fifth respectively.

• Angola is the second-highest-ranking African country, coming in at 13th on the list…

Rank	Country	Crime Index	Safety Index
1	Venezuela	83.76	16.24
2	Papua New Guinea	80.79	19.21
3	South Africa	76.86	23.14
4	Afghanistan	76.31	23.69
5	Honduras	74.54	25.46
6	Trinidad And Tobago	71.63	28.37
7	Guyana	68.74	31.26
8	El Salvador	67.79	32.21
9	Brazil	67.49	32.51
10	Jamaica	67.42	32.58
11	Syria	67.18	32.82
12	Peru	66.72	33.28
13	Angola	66.48	33.52
14	Cameroon	65.24	34.76
15	Namibia	65.21	34.79
16	Nigeria	64.06	35.94
17	Bangladesh	63.90	36.10
18	Argentina	63.82	36.18
19	Puerto Rico	62.84	37.16
20	Bahamas	62.06	37.94