The Safest Cities in North America 2026 — Ranked by Real Data

Key findings — free to cite

Hamilton, Canada is the safest on this ranking for 2026, scoring 92/100 — against a set average of 77.4 across 43 cities.

Hamilton leads the field at 92/100.
Scale is no barrier. Toronto (2.8m people) still makes the top 15, scoring 86/100.
The average across all 43 qualifying cities is 77.4/100, so anything in the mid-80s and up is genuinely exceptional.
Ranked on Kakapo's safety score, built from national travel advisories from seven governments plus crime, transport and healthcare data.

The ranking

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

A score is a comparison, not a verdict. These are model estimates that let you rank cities like-for-like — not incident counts. A high-ranked city can still have a bad night, and a lower-ranked one can be perfectly enjoyable with the right habits.

And the other end of the table

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

How we measured it

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.

Cite this study

This analysis is free to cite in journalism, research, or content — all we ask is a link back. Copy the attribution below:

Ready-to-use citation

Kakapo Editorial Team (2026). Safest Cities in North America 2026. Kakapo. https://kakapo.travel/blog/safest-cities-north-america-2026

Writing a travel-safety story? We give journalists and researchers custom data pulls at no cost — a specific region, a deeper table, or a city-by-city breakdown. Email [email protected] and we usually reply the same day.

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].