While it’s difficult to quantify how safe a country really is, safety is really important. Whether you’re a visiting tourist or a local, knowing how safe or secure a country is can be an important factor in whether you want to live in or visit it.
One of the best-known measures of security and safety in countries around the world is the annual Global Peace Index (GPI), which is a data-driven ranking of global peacefulness. The index looks at a plethora of things like crime rates, jailed population, political stability, military spending and international relations to rank 163 countries.
How did the UK fare? Well, tbh, not great – but not too bad, either. Ranking 37th, the UK is in the top 25 percent of the world’s safest countries.
On the plus side, the UK benefited from having a relatively low homicide and crime rate, good foreign relations and overall low internal and external conflict. In general, this country is still very safe.
What tipped the scales the other way for the UK were things like terrorist activity, relatively high military spending, heavy weapon exports and an overall high degree of militarisation.
Curious as to which country topped the list? If you’ve been following the GPI for a while now, you won’t be surprised that Iceland has topped the rankings again. It has topped the polls for six in a row now, thanks to low crime rates, minimal international and domestic conflicts, and good political stability. Second on the list went to Denmark while Ireland came in at third.
To find out what made the top ten safest (and most dangerous) countries in the world, read our article on the global ranking here. You can also have a look at the interactive GPI map on the official website here.
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