The topmost Dangerous Cities in the World – 2017

If I was to create a bucket list of places never to go then this list would probably make a good starting point. It has to be said the cities listed do not represent the last word in the most dangerous places on Earth as a number of criteria were used in choosing them. The research only considered cities that were not in recognized war zones and that had a population of more than 300,000 people. Also the statistic used to rank the cities was the homicide rate – which admittedly is probably a fairly good indication of how violent a city is.

When looking at this information there are really two facts that are particularly striking. Firstly, all but nine of these cities are in Latin America and secondly, out of those remaining, four are in the United States, the richest country on the planet. You could probably write a book on the socio-economic causes but the short version is poverty, drugs and gangs.

The other shocking statistic is the level of violence seen. At the higher end of the scale the murder rates are over 1 person in every thousand being killed every single year. That’s higher than cancer and over 10 times the average global homicide rate.

As  well as the shocking headline figures and the murder rates in some of these virtual failed states is another story – Brazil. Whilst none of the top 10 most violent cities are in Brazil 21 of the top 50 are. Given the relative size of the South American nation it would suggest more murders occur here than any other country.

Whilst the list of cities below is very informative and well researched there are quite a few places that we might have expected to see on the list. It is possible though that some places are so lawless and downright dangerous that statistics are the last thing to be collected…

Skip to full list of 50 most dangerous cities 2016 >

10. Cali, Colombia

Cali, Colombia

Crime in Colombia is at epidemic levels – In fact it is so bad that there is a page entitled Crime in Colombia on Wikipedia.  Close to the top of the list of Colombia’s most violent cities is Santiago de Cali, the largest in south west Colombia with a population of 2.3 million.

Violence in Cali is a largely attributed to the ‘mafia war’ on steroids that rages across Colombia. This turf war is between, not only militarized drug cartels, but the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), a left-wing insurgency that has battled the government and right-wing militia for over 50 years. So not only are there the usual shootings in this city of an estimated 1,700 hit-men, but there are regular bomb attacks on public buildings.

9. Cape Town, South Africa

Cape Town, South Africa – Photo: © Derek Keats (License)

It’s not just the man-eating sharks you need to look out for in Cape Town, this is statistically Africa’s most violent city. I suspect there are a few more likely candidates that have been excluded for various reasons, for instance Mogadishu but the fact remain the murder rate in Cape Town is shocking, and increasing .

This is not what you would expect to read about what is one of the world’s premiere tourist destinations. However, to a large extent the violence is contained within the poorest areas of the city, townships such as Khayelitsha, Gugulethu and Nyanga. Much of the crime here is drug and gang related but this can spill over to the wider city with crimes such as car-jacking and burglaries often resulting in violence.

8. Palmira, Colombia

Palmira, Colombia – Photo: © Sonnya (License)

Colombia’s second entry on the list is Palmira. This city of 300,000 people is just a stone’s throw from Cali but suffers even more from the same violence that plagues the region. The narco-paramilitary groups and guerrilla militias have been engaged in tit-for-tat battle of extortion, kidnapping, murder and even terrorism in Palmira as they fight to secure the lucrative Pacific coast drug trafficking routes.

It is the crossover of military groups and drug cartels (e.g. the Urabeños, Rastrojos and the FARC) that have led to this part of Colombia become one of the murder capitals of the world.

7. Valencia, Venezuela

Valencia, Venezuela – Photo: © Periergeia (License)

If you thought Colombia sounded bad then Venezuela is in another league. Occupying no less than 4 of the top ten spaces in this list of the World’s most dangerous cities this is a country on the brink. In the last 20 years murder rates have quadrupled – in fact things have gotten so bad that the Venezuelan government have refused to publish the official statistics since 2011. According to one source Venezuela is the most weaponized places on earth with one firearm for every two people.
And if you thought the homicide rate was bad, kidnappings rose over 10 times during the rule of Hugo Chavez, and show no signs of abating.

The city of Valencia has a population of nearly a million. It is one of the wealthiest in Venezuela, but this has not saved it from the raging violence with well over a thousand murders last year alone. It is also near Valencia that one of the most notorious crimes in Venezuela’s recent history was committed when former Miss Venezuela, Mónica Spear, and her husband were shot dead in front of their five-year-old daughter. Ironically, another beauty queen, Genesis Carmona, was shot dead in the city during an anti-government demonstration in 2014. But you don’t have to be beautiful to be a victim of Venezuela’s out of control violence…

6. Distrito Central, Honduras

Distrito Central, Honduras – Photo: © Nan Palmero (License)

I don’t know if the mayor’s were thinking what I am when they twinned Honduras’ capital city with Caracas in Venezuela. Whatever else these two Latin American cities may share it is the outrageously high level of violence that most of us will recognise. And it seems the similarities don’t end here; there appears to be a penchant for killing beauty queens in both countries. In 2014 Miss Honduras, Maria Jose Alvarado and her sister were shot dead.

Whilst there may actually be more dangerous cities throughout the world nowhere comes close to Honduras’ average homicide rate. At over 90 murders per 100,000 people it is almost double that of even Venezuela (and 10 times that of ‘normal’ countries). The capital of Honduras is Distrito Central which is actually two cities (Tegucigalpa and Comayagüela). Strangely enough the homicide rate in the city is actually lower than the national average, but that still gets it a place in the top ten.