Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates is the safest major city across the Middle East and Africa for 2026, scoring 95/100. We ranked every city above 500,000 people in the region on Kakapo's composite index.
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates is the safest on this ranking for 2026, scoring 95/100 — against a set average of 68.5 across 65 cities.
Ranked by Kakapo's overall safety score across the Middle East and the whole of Africa. The Gulf city-states sit in the global top tier; the region also holds the widest single-region range on the index.
| # | City | Safety score | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates | 95 | 95 |
| 2 | Dubai, United Arab Emirates | 92 | 92 |
| 3 | Madinah, Saudi Arabia | 92 | 92 |
| 4 | Makkah, Saudi Arabia | 90 | 90 |
| 5 | Muscat, Oman | 90 | 90 |
| 6 | Sharjah, United Arab Emirates | 89 | 89 |
| 7 | Riyadh, Saudi Arabia | 85 | 85 |
| 8 | Jeddah, Saudi Arabia | 84 | 84 |
| 9 | Konya, Türkiye | 84 | 84 |
| 10 | Jerusalem, Israel | 82 | 82 |
| 11 | Bursa, Türkiye | 81 | 81 |
| 12 | Rabat, Morocco | 80 | 80 |
| 13 | Antalya, Türkiye | 80 | 80 |
| 14 | İzmir, Türkiye | 79 | 79 |
| 15 | Kigali, Rwanda | 79 | 79 |
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 | Safety score | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61 | Ibb, Yemen | 33 | 33 |
| 62 | Damascus, Syrian Arab Republic | 31 | 31 |
| 63 | Sadr City, Iraq | 31 | 31 |
| 64 | Aden, Yemen | 29 | 29 |
| 65 | Aleppo, Syrian Arab Republic | 20 | 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 safety score. The pool is every Middle Eastern and African city over 500,000 residents with a live Kakapo score. 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). Safest Cities in the Middle East & Africa 2026. Kakapo. https://kakapo.travel/blog/safest-cities-middle-east-africa-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].