Economist Intelligence Unit: Copenhagen tops Safe Cities Index 2021

The Economist Intelligence Unit (The EIU) has released its 4th edition of the Safe Cities Index (SCI), which ranks 60 cities worldwide across five continents. It measures the multifaceted nature of urban safety, with 76 indicators organised along five pillars: personal, health, infrastructure, digital, and – new this year – environmental security.

In each of the last three iterations, Tokyo, Singapore and Osaka – always in that order – have been index leaders. This year, however, in a study of five pillars of urban security - digital, health, infrastructure, personal and environmental - Copenhagen tops the charts, scoring 82.4 points out of 100.

The change reflects not a tectonic shift, but more a reordering among cities that have always come close to the top, the EIU points out.

The Safe Cities Index has been subjected to both reevaluation and significant changes, including updates to existing indicators and scoring methodology, the addition of new indicators under existing domains, and the addition of a new domain to the framework.

The introduction of a new pillar for environmental security in this year's index reflects the growing importance of sustainability issues and climate adaptation measures amid the pandemic - and here Copenhagen, along with Toronto, performed noticeably better than any of the top-three cities from earlier years. 

Looking at a broad field of urban security, as cities work to bring the pandemic to heel, is an all-important matter for everyone, including the travel industry.

"Our top position in The EIU Safe Cities Index 2021 is a significant nod to the city of Copenhagen's great work within urban safety. Surveys like these help unlock travel again, and whilst our destination continues its tireless work within this field, we look forward to welcoming more travellers back to our capital," states Tine Kastrup-Misir, Director of Communication at Wonderful Copenhagen.

Read the full Safe Cities Index 2021 report, incl. Q&As with Copenhagen's Lord Mayor Lars Weiss here.

The Safe Cities Index 2021 is a report from The Economist Intelligence Unit sponsored by NEC Corporation.