Top 10 Countries and Cities by Number of CCTV Cameras

According to the data analysed by PreciseSecurity.com and collected by CompariTech, China, the United States, and Germany are the countries with the largest number of surveillance cameras in the world. China is the undisputed leader with four times more surveillance cameras installed in its territory than the United States.

People often label China as a Security state, when in fact, the USA has more Closed Circuit TV (CCTV) cameras per capita. Regarding the number of cameras per person, the United States remains a clear leader in the world.

At the same time, 8 out of the top 10 cities in the world with the largest number of surveillance cameras installed are located in China. London and New Delhi were the other two cities among the top 10.

Surveillance Cameras Expand Around The World

The number of surveillance cameras is expanding around the world for governments to have control over their populations. However, this trend is raising concerns among citizens that feel their privacy is being affected by the installation of millions of (CCTV) cameras in cities in all the continents.

China has at least 200 million cameras installed monitoring people in the country. This is the nation with the most significant number of cameras installed for surveillance in the world. However, China is not alone; other countries such as the United States and Germany have 50 million and 5.2 million CCTV Cameras each.

The list goes on with other countries with more than 1 million cameras. The United Kingdom has 5 million CCTV cameras installed, followed by Japan with 5 million, Vietnam with 2.6 million, France with 1.65 million, South Korea with 1.03 million, and the Netherlands with 1 million.

The United States has 15.28 CCTV cameras every 100 individuals, followed by China with 14.36 and the United Kingdom with 7.5. Other top 10 countries include Germany with 6.27 cameras per 100 individuals, Netherlands 5.8, Australia 4, Japan 2.72, France 2.46 and South Korea 1.99.

India, Russia, and Brazil have reported data about their CCTV Cameras in just some cities. This is why the results will be surprisingly below the average of other countries. Russia has around 196,000 CCTV cameras installed between Moscow and St. Petersburg.

India has reported data of 9 different cities that accumulate 274,784 surveillance cameras. New Delhi, Chennai, and Pune were the cities that reported the largest number of CCTV cameras with 179k, 50k and 11.29k, respectively.

Finally, Brazil provided information about ten of the largest cities in the country. The most important cities are Salvador with 7,300 cameras, Rio de Janeiro with 4,500 and Sao Paulo with 2,623 cameras. Nonetheless, the total number of cameras in selected cities is 22,384.

As mentioned before, we believe this number fo be much higher in Russia, India, and Brazil. Countries do not provide all the information about each of the cities in their respective territories.

City Surveillance

8 of the top 10 cities with the largest number of CCTV cameras are located in China. The top three cities are SHanghai with 2,985,984 cameras, followed by Chongqing with 2,579,890 units and Shenzhen with 1,929,600 surveillance devices.

The top 10 includes Tianjin (1,244,160), Beijing (800,000), Guangzhou (684,000), London (627,707), Ji’nan (540,463), Wuhan (500,000) and New Delhi (179,000). These top ten cities have an average of 14.35 million citizens, which means they are large cities that must be controlled and surveilled.

Meanwhile, some cities reported in the United States included Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Washington D.C., San Diego, San Francisco, Boston, Houston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Miami, Dallas, and Los Angeles. Nonetheless, many other cities remained outside of the list. Chicago had 35,000 cameras, followed by New York with 11,000 reported cameras, Atlanta with 7,800 and Washington D.C., 4,000.

In terms of CCTV cameras per 100 people, we have Chongqing with 16.80 cameras, Shenzhen with 15.90, and Shanghai 11.34. China also controls the top 10 with eight cities. London was in the 6th position with 6.84 cameras per 100 people and Atlanta in the 10th position with 1.55 cameras per 100 citizens.

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