Hanoi ranked 5th, HCMC 14th safest tourist city in Southeast Asia

By Nguyen Quy January 30, 2023 | 04:44 pm PT

Foreign tourists on Ta Hien Street in Hanoi on New Year's Eve, December 31, 2022. Photo by VnExpress/Ngoc Thanh

Hanoi ranked fifth and Ho Chi Minh City 14th on the safety index among Southeast Asia's 20 tourist cities published by statistics site Numbeo recently.

Hanoi’s safety index was 62 points, after Thailand’s Chiang Mai at 75.9, the Philippines’ Davao at 72.4, Singapore at 70.6 and Malaysia’s Penang at 66.5, according to data from Numbeo, which claims to be the world’s largest database of user-contributed data about cities and countries worldwide.

The southern Vietnamese metropolis’s safety index was 47.4 points as the site says walking alone at night in HCMC "has a low safety level."

Thailand’s Bangkok ranked seventh while Indonesia’s tourist paradise island Bali secured the 10th position.

Numbeo defined safety as "safety walking alone in daylight" and "safety walking alone at night."

It measured the level of safety in 416 cities around the world based on public perceptions.

Globally, Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates took the lead with safety index of 88.8, followed by Doha in Qatar and Taipei in Taiwan.

The world's least safe city was Caracas in Venezuela, where violence and murder have become notorious.

Hanoi strives to attract three million foreign tourists this year while HCMC has set a target of five million foreign arrivals.