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Zurich, Basel and Bern have been ranked within the top 20 safest cities in the world, according to a new crowdsourced survey. Published by Numbeo – which describes itself as “the world’s largest cost of living database” – the data is based on people’s responses to online questionnaires about the city they live in.
People from around the world take the survey and Numbeo then publishes crime and safety indexes based on the responses. It’s clearly a very subjective list (just to be really clear, there are no official figures or crime statistics used in the rankings – it’s purely individual opinion), but the aim is to present a picture of how people view their city.
Questions in the survey include “How safe do you feel walking alone in this city during the night?”, “How much of a problem are corruption and bribery?” and “How worried are you about being mugged and robbed?”
Numbeo uses the data to publishes snapshot-style indexes twice a year, and in the latest safety index, Zurich is ranked as the fifth safest city, with Bern at number 12 and Basel at 16. Geneva doesn’t fare so well, ranking in 62nd place, with Lausanne all the way down in 98th.
Abu Dhabi in UAE was ranked as the safest city in the current list, followed by Doha (Qatar), Taipei (Taiwan) and Quebec City in Canada. For anyone wondering how London fared, it ended up at 310 in the list.
But again, let’s remember that these opinion-based rankings don’t exactly tell the whole story. For example, while people are only meant to give responses about the city/cities they live in, there’s nothing to stop anyone answering the survey for any city they choose.
In fact, we’re guessing that residents of Lausanne and Geneva probably won’t be hightailing it out of their respective cities anytime soon after looking at the figures.
Wherever you are in Switzerland, take a look at our range of city guides to find out what’s on offer across the country when it’s safe to go out and about once again.