Hong Kong ranked 11th safest city in the world, residents feel safer than they should

Police officers during the clearance of the Admiralty protest site on Dec. 11, 2014. (Photo: Laurel Chor/Coconuts Media)

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has released this year’s Safe Cities Index, a ranking of the safest cities in the world, based on the following factors:
 

• Digital security (Is your Tindr account going to get hacked?)
• Health security (Will you get Ebola/SARS/swine flu?)
• Infrastructure safety (Will you die in a Typhoon 10?)
• Personal safety (How likely are you to get robbed or beaten up by seven police officers?) 

Tokyo comes in at number one, which is why they get to have things like hilarious (and adorable) TV shows where they send off five-year-olds to complete shopping errands all by themselves.

That’s not recommended if you live in Guangzhou, for example, which is ranked 48th. 

Hong Kong came in at #11, making it officially less safe than Melbourne (#9) and New York City (#10), but safer than San Francisco (#12) and Taipei (#13).

The good news is that Hong Kong did come in fourth for digital security and sixth for personal safety.

The bad news is that our overall ranking was pulled down by our 15th placing for health security (thanks, bird flu), and a sad 40th for infrastructure safety (probably because the probability of falling down a construction site and/or uncovering a bomb in a construction site remains very high).

The report also compared the perception of safety in certain cities to the cold, hard reality of how dangerous it actually is. 

Rather unsettlingly, Hongkongers feel slightly safer than they actually should. So hide your kids, lock your doors, wear surgical masks, and watch your step. 

Finally, when you take into account different rankings the EIU has created, Hong Kong comes out, on average, in a pathetic 45th place. 

For the full report, click here.