(App users, to view the interactive data visualization, follow this

).

Methodology:

All data was sourced from the Federal Bureau-Investigation. Crime reports for 2016 are

not

included in this data visualization, because the FBI only has its preliminary semiannual uniform crime report listed for the year, from January to June.

The

violent crime safety score

was calculated by taking the number of reported violent crime incidents per location, and dividing this by the location's population, divided by 1,000. This produces a violent crime safety score per 1,000 people. The

property crime safety score

was calculated by taking the number of reported property crime incidents per location, and dividing this by the location's population, divided by 1,000. This produces a property crime safety score per 1,000 people.

The

overall safety score

was calculated by adding together the violent crime safety score and the property crime safety score, then dividing this by 2. This produces an overall safety score per 1,000 people, which is then used to rank locations from safest to least safe.

Alaskan cities that are missing from the

Safest Cities in Alaska (2006 - 2015)

line chart are excluded, because the cities either had populations below 2,000, or they failed to submit uniform crime reports to the FBI.

Story:

In 2015, Cordova was Alaska's safest city, with an overall safety score of 4.95 crimes per 1,000 people. While Kotzebue was the state's least safe city, with an overall safety score of 43.89 crimes per 1,000 people. And Alaska ranks 44 out out of 52 total states and territories, including Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, with an overall safety score of 17.74 crimes per 1,000 people.

The national average overall safety score was 14.35 crimes per 1,000, in 2015.

Also in 2015, Anchorage ranked 21 out of 24 total cities, in an overall safety score calculation. It had an overall safety score of 24.94 crimes per 1,000 people. Additionally, the municipality ranks fairly low, regarding both its violent crime and property crime safety scores.

Since 2007, the Municipality of Anchorage has not been ranked higher than 12th place in safety. And since 2011, Anchorage has not recovered from its rather downward trend in overall safety score.

Overall safety scores tend to be more affected by property crime, than violent crime. This is because more cases of property crime incidents are reported, than violent crime incidents. In 2015, within Alaska, there were 20,806 cases of property crimes reported to the FBI, compared to 5,392 cases of violent crimes reported. This trend is true across the country.

To see how your city ranks over the past 10 years, take a look at the interactive data visualization, above.