The 9 most violent cities in South Africa ranked

·5 Apr 2017

The latest violence data compiled by Brazilian think-tank Igarapé Institute, shows which South African cities are the most violent.

The group recently showed that three South African cities – namely Cape Town, Nelson Mandela Bay and Buffalo city – are among the 50 most violent cities in the world.

But using the latest reported crime data (from 2016), six other South African cities were also ranked.

Cape Town was ranked as the 14th most violent city in the world, behind ‘the usual suspects’ from El Salvador, Mexico and Honduras.

South Africa’s high murder rate in these cities puts the country squarely in the top 10 most violent nations on earth, according to the data.

Cape Town’s high murder rate is closely linked to high levels of gang activity in and around the city – while the Eastern Cape’s violence problem is linked to overpopulation and poverty in the affected provinces.

While Johannesburg has the reputation of being one of the most dangerous cities in the country (and the world), when it comes to murder, it ranks quite low – of the nine cities listed, it ranks 8th.

Of all the listed cities, the three cities in Gauteng – Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni – were the only ones to have murder rates below the national average, and more than half of the murder rate in Cape Town.

These are the most violent cities in South Africa

#	City	Murder rate (2016)
1	Cape Town	61.5
2	Nelson Mandela Bay	53.1
3	Buffalo City	46.5
4	eThekwini	42.4
5	Manguang	40.6
6	Durban	35.9
	South Africa	34.3
7	Ekurhuleni	30.3
8	Johannesburg	29.7
9	City of Tshwane	28.5