If you get sick abroad, Yokohama, Japan is the safest major city to be in for 2026, scoring 92/100 on healthcare. We ranked the world's big cities by Kakapo's healthcare sub-score — hospital access, quality and reliability.
Yokohama, Japan is the safest on this ranking for 2026, scoring 92/100 on healthcare score — against a set average of 74.1 across 327 cities.
Ranked by Kakapo's healthcare sub-score — how good, accessible and reliable medical care is for a traveller who falls ill or is injured. This is the number that matters most for older travellers, families and anyone with a condition.
| # | City | Healthcare score | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yokohama, Japan | 92 | 95 |
| 2 | Sapporo, Japan | 92 | 95 |
| 3 | Fukuoka, Japan | 92 | 95 |
| 4 | Kyoto, Japan | 92 | 95 |
| 5 | Hiroshima, Japan | 92 | 95 |
| 6 | Tokyo, Japan | 92 | 94 |
| 7 | Nagoya, Japan | 92 | 94 |
| 8 | Kobe, Japan | 92 | 94 |
| 9 | Hamamatsu, Japan | 92 | 94 |
| 10 | Sagamihara, Japan | 92 | 94 |
| 11 | Shizuoka, Japan | 92 | 94 |
| 12 | Osaka, Japan | 92 | 93 |
| 13 | Ottawa, Canada | 92 | 88 |
| 14 | Québec, Canada | 92 | 88 |
| 15 | Nürnberg, Germany | 92 | 87 |
For contrast, these are the lowest-scoring cities in the same pool on this metric — useful for calibrating what a given score actually means.
| # | City | Healthcare score | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|
| 323 | Damascus, Syrian Arab Republic | 33 | 31 |
| 324 | Caracas, Venezuela | 32 | 42 |
| 325 | Aden, Yemen | 32 | 29 |
| 326 | Sadr City, Iraq | 31 | 31 |
| 327 | Aleppo, Syrian Arab Republic | 16 | 20 |
We queried the live Kakapo index for every city above 500,000 residents in scope, deduplicated by city (keeping the largest-population entity), and ranked them by healthcare score. Only cities with a healthcare sub-score are included; the metric is that sub-score, not overall safety. Scores draw on national travel advisories from seven governments plus crime, transport and healthcare data; full weighting is at https://kakapo.travel/about/methodology. Scores are comparative model estimates, updated continuously, not incident counts — this page reads them live, so the numbers match the rest of the site.
This analysis is free to cite in journalism, research, or content — all we ask is a link back. Copy the attribution below:
Kakapo Editorial Team (2026). Best Cities for Medical Safety 2026. Kakapo. https://kakapo.travel/blog/best-cities-medical-safety-2026
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Kakapo publishes real safety scores for every destination, drawing on national travel advisories, local crime data, healthcare infrastructure, and night-safety measures. Kakapo Studies is our research imprint — independent editorial, no advertiser influence on scores. Contact: [email protected].