The survey is sponsored by NEC Corporation and is based on the fourth iteration of the index, which ranks 60 cities across 76 indicators including digital, health, infrastructure, personal and environmental security.

Copenhagen in Denmark scored 82.4 points to come in first as the safest city, followed by Toronto in Canada with 82.2 points.

Hong Kong ranked eighth on the list with 78.6 points. The city topped the list on infrastructure security at 93.4 points and ranked third on health security with 84 points.

Although Hong Kong's overall ranking jumped to the eighth from 20th in 2019, the score was still lower than the score of 83.7 points achieved in 2019.

Hong Kong scored 70.1 points to rank 21st on digital security, while Beijing scored 53.3 points and ranked 45th on the list. As for personal security, Hong Kong scored 70.4 points to rank 21st, marking a decrease of 21.5 points.

The report also listed other key findings, like income and transparency, as factors that remain strongly correlated with higher index scores, and noted that while most cities have strong environmental policies, they must now deliver results.