Canada Sweeps North America's Safety Rankings: Quebec City Leads, Six Cities in the Top 10

Key Takeaways

• The five safest cities in North America are all Canadian, split between Ontario and Quebec, per Numbeo's regional safety index.
• Canada holds six of North America's 10 safest cities, and 33 of the 79 cities ranked.
• Quebec City tops both the North American and national lists with a safety index of 77.7.

Canada dominates the top of North America's safety rankings: the five safest cities on the continent are all Canadian, divided between Ontario and Quebec, according to Numbeo's North America city safety index. Canada's strength carries through the wider top 10 as well, claiming six of the 10 safest cities. The index draws on crowdsourced data reflecting residents' perceptions of crime and safety, and is updated continuously from user submissions.

North America's 10 safest cities

Ontario and Quebec account for nearly every Canadian entry in the top 10, with Calgary the lone exception:

Every Canadian city in the ranking sits in the "High" safety band (60.01–80 out of 100) and, correspondingly, a "Low" crime band. Across the full list, 33 of the 79 North American cities are Canadian.

Canada's 10 safest cities

The national top 10 spans five provinces — two of which (British Columbia and Nova Scotia) don't appear on the North America-wide list:

Vancouver is the only city on the national list to fall outside the "Low" crime band, landing instead in the "Moderate" range (40.01–60). Ontario leads with four cities, followed by Quebec and British Columbia with two each, and Alberta and Nova Scotia with one each.

How the index is built

Numbeo's Current Safety Index by City is compiled continuously from the previous five years of user-submitted surveys on how safe people feel and how they perceive crime day to day. Scores run on a 0-to-100 scale, and only cities meeting a minimum number of contributions are included. The index weighs general perceptions of crime, perceived safety during day and night, concern about specific crimes (mugging, robbery, car theft, physical attacks, public harassment, and bias-motivated incidents), and the severity of both property crime (burglary, theft, vandalism) and violent crime (assault, homicide, sexual offences). It is essentially the inverse of the Crime Index, banded as Very Low (≤20), Low (20.01–40), Moderate (40.01–60), High (60.01–80), and Very High (above 80).

What This Means for Applicants: For newcomers weighing where to settle, the rankings reinforce a familiar pattern — mid-sized Ontario and Quebec cities such as Quebec City, Burlington, Ottawa and Guelph consistently top perceived-safety measures, while larger hubs like Vancouver score lower. Perceived safety is only one factor alongside jobs, housing and community, but it is a meaningful one, and these results give arriving families a useful starting point.