These Are The 15 Safest And 15 Least Safe Counties In America

American families take many factors into consideration when trying to figure out where to move. Whether or not their area has great schools, access to public parks, is affordable, or has nearby — but not too nearby — access to grandma and grandpa are all reasonable factors for someone to consider when they’re looking at making a big move, or just making a move across a county line. Safety, too, is a major consideration. Gun violence, road safety, and whether or not an emergency room is nearby are major considerations for families trying to figure out where to settle their lives.

But if parents only took safety into consideration, everyone would move to Europe — at least according to a June 2022 Bloomberg article that compiled data from the FBI and the CDC to find out what states, counties, and metropolitan areas are the safest and least safe in the United States. What they found? “Even the safest areas in the US remain killing fields compared with most of Western Europe.”

Bloomberg also compiled data on transportation deaths and more to find out the safest and least safe places in the United States. And what is killing people? Cars. Guns. Disease. And if you are looking at where to move based on safety alone, you probably want to be in a place where you limit your risk of excess deaths. And the safest place in America really seems to be “very affluent suburbs” on the East Coast.

The data comes with heavy caveats: The most recent year for which the CDC has full data for homicide rates is 2020, for example, meaning the current picture might be slightly different than it was just about two years ago. Additionally, in the data sets for the safest and most dangerous counties in America, which we are primarily concerned with here, reporter Justin Fox could only include the “997 counties for which the CDC reported mortality rates for 2020.”

The data set also excluded “accidental poisoning, intentional self-harm, falls, complications of medical and surgical care” and the consequences of “external causes of morbidity and mortality.” Additionally, Wonder data is limited — “for privacy reasons, it only shares what it knows if there are 10 or more deaths to report ... [and for reliability reasons] only calculates mortality rates if there are 20 or more deaths.” Also, the mortality statistics in this article are reported by “the residence of the victims,” not where the accident itself occurred. In other words, there may be more to the picture than what we see here. There are also no estimates by metropolitan area — mostly just counties.

Regardless of how the cookie crumbles, there are a few major takeaways. One: In general, the safest counties in the United States are almost exclusively on the East Coast, with the exception of a few counties in Ohio, Illinois, Colorado, and Georgia. Two of the counties on the list are in New York City — Queens County and New York County — and many others are in New Jersey and New York suburbs.

And similarly, the most dangerous counties in America are almost exclusively landlocked areas. The least safe county in America? Big Horn County, Montana. Counties in Mississippi, Maryland, Arkansas, and a handful in South Carolina, Kentucky, Alaska, and Arizona all hit the list.

There’s lots more in this reporting — including a cool list of the safest metro areas, rather than counties. That list finds the Boston-Cambridge area and the New York/Newark/Pennsylvania area to be the top two safest metro areas in the United States. For the most part, the safest metro areas and least safe metro areas follow county trends: East Coast cities are much safer, and areas in the South are indeed much less safe.

The 15 Safest Counties In America, Ranked:

1. Loudon County, Virginia, 6.4 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
2. Douglas County, Colorado, 7.5 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
3. Delaware County, Ohio, 9.4 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
4. Somerset County, New Jersey, 10.9 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
5. Richmond County, New York, 10.9 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
6. DuPage County, Illinois, 11.0 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
7. Queens County, New York, 11.5 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
8. Fairfax County, Virginia, 11.6 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
9. Middlesex County, Massachusetts, 11.9 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
10. Forsyth County, Georgia, 12.0 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
11. New York County, New York, 12.0 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
12. Hampshire County, Massachusetts, 12.4 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
13. Morris County, New Jersey, 12.4 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
14. Chester County, Pennsylvania, 12.5 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
15. Nassau County, New York, 12.7 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population

The 15 Least Safe Counties, With 1 Being The Least Safe:

1. Big Horn County, Montana, 168.4 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
2. Calhoun County, Mississippi, 161.5 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
3. Baltimore City, Maryland, 160.0 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
4. Philips County, Arkansas, 138.7 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
5. Holmes County, Mississippi, 137.5 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
6. Dillon County, South Carolina, 135.0 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
7. Colleton County, South Carolina, 133.4 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
8. Hampton County, South Carolina, 132.9 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
9. Leflore County, Mississippi, 129.2 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
10. Perry County, Kentucky, 125.7 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
11. Bethel Census Area, Alaska, 113.9 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
12. Hinds County, Mississippi, 109.2 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
13. Covington County, Mississippi, 108.0 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
14. La Paz County, Arizona, 107.1 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population
15. Mississippi County, Arkansas, 104.8 deaths from selected external causes per 100k population

For more on the story, and for more data sets, visit Bloomberg.