Hamilton, Canada is the safest major city in North America for 2026, scoring 92/100. We ranked every city above 500,000 people across the United States, Canada and Mexico on Kakapo's composite index.
Hamilton, Canada is the safest on this ranking for 2026, scoring 92/100 — against a set average of 77.4 across 43 cities.
Ranked by Kakapo's overall safety score across the US, Canada and Mexico. Canadian cities cluster at the top; the US shows the widest intra-country spread of any wealthy nation.
| # | City | Safety score | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hamilton, Canada | 92 | 92 |
| 2 | San Diego, United States | 90 | 90 |
| 3 | Ottawa, Canada | 88 | 88 |
| 4 | Québec, Canada | 88 | 88 |
| 5 | Austin, United States | 87 | 87 |
| 6 | Toronto, Canada | 86 | 86 |
| 7 | Montréal, Canada | 86 | 86 |
| 8 | Puebla, Mexico | 86 | 86 |
| 9 | Calgary, Canada | 86 | 86 |
| 10 | Portland, United States | 85 | 85 |
| 11 | Phoenix, United States | 83 | 83 |
| 12 | Mérida, Mexico | 83 | 83 |
| 13 | Nashville, United States | 83 | 83 |
| 14 | Dallas, United States | 82 | 82 |
| 15 | The Bronx, United States | 81 | 81 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 39 | Memphis, United States | 60 | 60 |
| 40 | Mexico City, Mexico | 59 | 59 |
| 41 | Detroit, United States | 58 | 58 |
| 42 | Tijuana, Mexico | 57 | 57 |
| 43 | Baltimore, United States | 57 | 57 |
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 US, Canadian and Mexican 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 North America 2026. Kakapo. https://kakapo.travel/blog/safest-cities-north-america-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].