A crime index compiled by Numbeo shows that South Africa is considered the third-most dangerous country in the world – with four South African cities listed in the top 10.

According to the data site, South Africa is ranked second, only to Venezuela and South Sudan in terms of crime and safety across 117 countries in the world where data is available.

South Africa has a reputation for being one of the most dangerous countries in the world due to its high levels of violent crime. The country has also become a hotbed for economic crime, and digital crime activity.

The Numbeo Crime Index is based on survey responses, where users were asked to score the level of crime in their country and city from bad (-2) to good (+2), where 0 is average.

The survey dealt with citizens’ levels of fear around violent crimes, property being stolen, hate crimes based on ethnicity or religion, and even corruption and bribery.

Notably, corruption and bribery was perceived to be the biggest crime set in South Africa, followed by assault and robbery, and theft. Being insulted or attacked based on race or religion was the least worrying crime group.

Numbeo ranked Venezuela as the most dangerous country in the world, followed by South Sudan, South Africa, Papua New Guinea and Hondurus.

Most dangerous countries in the world

# Country Crime Score Safety Score 1 Venezuela 84.44 15.56 2 South Sudan 81.32 18.68 3 South Africa 78.43 21.57 4 Papua New Guinea 77.58 22.42 5 Honduras 76.43 23.57 6 Nigeria 74.14 25.86 7 Trinidad and Tobago 72.60 27.40 8 El Salvador 72.04 27.96 9 Brazil 71.23 28.77 10 Kenya 69.49 30.51 11 Bangladesh 68.56 31.44 12 Malaysia 68.55 31.45 13 Puerto Rico 65.92 34.08 14 Jamaica 65.53 34.47 15 Peru 64.00 36.00

Looking at the city rankings, San Pedro Sula of Honduras is viewed as the worst in the world for crime and safety, followed by Pietermaritzburg, in KwaZulu Natal.

Maritzburg is one of four South African cities ranked in the top 10 – ahead of Johannesburg (4th), Pretoria (5th) and Durban (6th).

Cape Town, which is ranked as the 9th most violent city in the world (determined by the number of homicides per 100,000 population) is 20th in the Numbeo index.

A total of six South African cities were ranked (out of 342 cities) – all within the top 20.

Most dangerous cities in South Africa

# City Crime Score Safety Score 1 Pietermaritzburg 87.10 12.90 2 Johannesburg 83.36 16.64 3 Pretoria 80.77 19.23 4 Durban 79.90 20.10 5 Port Elizabeth 72.56 27.44 6 Cape Town 72.00 28.00

Numbeo’s indices rely on user inputs as well as data manually collected information from a number of authoritative sources, with algorithms in place to discard statistically inaccurate data.

The group claims to have collected millions datapoints since it was established, and is often used as a comparative data source for media groups such as Forbes, Business Insider, Time, The Economist and the NYT.

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