NEW DELHI: Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, has been named as the safest city of the world for the first time, according to the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU). Copenhagen climbed to the top spot and toppled Tokyo and Singapore, which were the usual contenders in the Index. Two cities of India, Delhi and Mumbai, have also managed to reserve their spots in the top 50 list with 56.1 points and 54.4 points respectively. Copenhagen is followed by Toronto at the second spot while Singapore was ranked third in the Index.
The study was conducted on 60 cities on the basis of 76 indicators including digital, health, personal-security, environmental and infrastructure sectors, etc. The EIU has been releasing the survey every two years since 2015. As per the survey in 2019, Tokyo and Singapore were the top two countries, followed by Osaka, Japan.
The report also said that the COVID-19 pandemic has altered the concept of urban safety as digital security is considered more important as business started to shift towards online platforms. It added that the pandemic has also changed the way infrastructure safety was analysed, as transportation and utility habits have changed.
Such pandemic and health crisis have resulted in a shift of results of world’s safest cities. According to the Index, the least safe cities are Yangon, Lagos, Caracas, Cairo and Karachi.