Choosing a city
Last updated 25 September 2026
All 413 cities with more than 100,000 residents in fourteen countries, from official sources.
Every city with more than 100,000 residents in the fourteen countries we cover, plus Antibes Juan-les-Pins and Galway: where it is, how many people live there, what it is known for, and how much crime the police record there compared with the country as a whole.
The fourteen countries
- Cities in Sweden – 20 cities
- Cities in Norway – 8 cities
- Cities in Denmark – 9 cities
- Cities in Finland – 9 cities
- Cities in the UK – 66 cities
- Cities in Ireland – 4 cities
- Cities in Germany – 79 cities
- Cities in the Netherlands – 32 cities
- Cities in France – 43 cities
- Cities in Spain – 67 cities
- Cities in Portugal – 25 cities
- Cities in Italy – 45 cities
- Cities in Switzerland – 6 cities
- Monaco – 1 city, the whole principality
How to read the figures
- Population is the latest official figure from each country’s statistics office. The reference date differs between countries and is given for every city.
- The short profile is based on the city’s own website, its universities and airports, and official statistics – each source is linked under the city.
- The crime rate is the number of offences recorded by the police per 1,000 residents, the measure each country publishes for its cities – in France, which publishes no total by commune, victims of physical violence. It is set against the rate for the whole country.
- Compare cities within one country only. Countries count crime differently, so a higher figure in one country than in another says little.
- Offences are counted where they happen and divided by the people who live there, so centres with many commuters, shoppers, visitors and nightlife record high rates. The figure is not your personal risk.
- Where we have calculated a rate ourselves from an official count and the official population, the city says so.
Comparing countries
No official body ranks countries by overall crime. The one measure that is recorded in much the same way everywhere is intentional homicide, because almost every killing becomes known to the police. Eurostat collects it from national police statistics, and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) collects the same indicator worldwide.
| Country | Per 100,000 residents | Source, period |
|---|---|---|
| Sweden | 0.87 | Eurostat, 2024 |
| Norway | 0.70 | Eurostat, 2024 |
| Denmark | 0.87 | Eurostat, 2024 |
| Finland | 1.78 | Eurostat, 2024 |
| England and Wales | 0.86 | ONS, year to March 2025 |
| Ireland | 0.69 | Eurostat, 2024 |
| Germany | 0.83 | Eurostat, 2024 |
| Netherlands | 0.67 | Eurostat, 2024 |
| France | 1.28 | Eurostat, 2024 |
| Spain | 0.72 | Eurostat, 2024 |
| Portugal | 0.68 | Eurostat, 2024 |
| Italy | 0.57 | Eurostat, 2024 |
| Switzerland | 0.50 | Eurostat, 2024 |
Intentional homicide recorded by the police, per 100,000 residents. Sources: Eurostat, crim_off_cat (data updated 29 April 2026); ONS, Homicide in England and Wales: year ending March 2025. Eurostat has no figures for the UK after 2018. Scotland and Northern Ireland publish their own homicide statistics. Homicide is rare everywhere in these countries, and it says little about burglary, theft or how safe a street feels.
Sources and method
The cities were identified from each statistics office’s own municipal population tables, and every crime figure comes from the national police or statistics authority named on the country page. Where a figure was not published for a city, we say so rather than estimate it. Read more in Sources and methodology. Found an error? Write to editor@relocateineurope.com.