Bosnia and Herzegovina has been placed among the safer countries in Europe on a viral map measuring how safe people feel when walking alone at night. The safety perception in Bosnia and Herzegovina is shown in green, alongside several other Balkan countries that also rank among Europe’s safer areas.
The map attracted significant attention on social media after being shared by the Instagram profiles GeoData & Rankings and manipulated_geopolitics. European countries are divided into several categories, ranging from the safest in shades of green to those with the lowest perceived safety in red.
Bosnia and Much of the Balkans Shown in Green
Bosnia and Herzegovina is displayed in green, indicating that people report feeling relatively safe when walking alone on the streets at night. A similar pattern is visible across much of the Western Balkans.
Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Slovenia are also shown as very safe on the map, while some countries in the region are placed in the highest category, labelled “Safest.”
This produces a notably different picture from parts of Western and Southern Europe. The United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain and Greece are shown in red shades and placed in the “Unsafe” or “Not Safe” categories.
Sweden is also shown as less safe on the map, despite Scandinavian countries often being associated with high levels of security. Norway and Finland, by contrast, are classified as safe.
Germany, Austria and Switzerland are also among the countries shown as relatively safe. The resulting map therefore does not present a simple geographical or economic division of Europe.
Map Measures Perception, Not Overall Crime Levels
The safety perception in Bosnia and Herzegovina shown on the map refers specifically to how safe people feel when walking alone at night. The categories should therefore not be treated as equivalent to official crime statistics or as a measurement of a country’s overall level of security.
The map prompted numerous reactions online, particularly because several wealthy Western European countries were shown as less safe than countries in the Balkans.
The presentation suggests that a country’s level of economic development does not necessarily correspond with how safe its residents feel when moving alone at night. However, the reports stress that such maps should be interpreted in the context of their methodology and the data sources on which they are based.
