No Asia. No Europe. No Africa, except South Africa.
It’s an absurd list: it’s measuring the combination of lethal violence and a sufficiently strong rule of law to adequately record homicides as crimes, rather than the actual level of homicides, and doing this only in urban areas. Most of Africa is missing because it lacks the latter. Botswana is probably the only other country in Subsaharan Africa besides South Africa with a strong enough rule of law to accurately record homicides, and it’s not a violent place, comparatively speaking.
One would think that Beirut, Damascus, Gaza City, Baghdad and maybe Belfast would have made the list.
I live in Jakarta, Indonesia. It is a rambling, shambling conurbation with a population of 12 million. There is desperate poverty in some parts and if you looked at it you’d think it was a seething urban nightmare of chaos and crime. Actually it’s remarkably crime free.
In the ten years I have lived here, wandering around some dodgy areas late at night with my big red Irish face telling the world I have probably had a few too many drinks I have never met with anything other than a broad grin and a “hello mister!”. The worst crime I suffered was when I had my wallet stolen on a bus but it was handed back to me by a fellow passenger who had seen the thief and made him hand it over.
If I am not mistaken the murder rate was something in the region of 80 per year, out of 12 million people.
Asian people are generally law-abiding (well except for the endemic corruption of course).