Metaxourgeio scores 9 out of 100 for overall safety — high crime, on a scale where 50 is the average for Greece. It is home to about 4,650 people at 16,579 people per km².
The score is absolute, not a ranking: 50 is the offence rate for Greece as a whole, 100 the safest end of the scale and 0 the least safe, and every doubling of the rate costs the same number of points wherever you are. Regional units are scored from Eurostat's police-recorded offence rates per 100,000 inhabitants. Greece publishes nothing finer, so municipalities and districts share out their region's measured rate by how built-up they are and by documented local reporting — treat those two levels as an estimate, not a count of reported crime.
What Metaxourgeio is actually like
Metaxourgeio, named for a 19th-century silk mill, is the most uneven neighbourhood in central Athens. Avdi Square is its heart - trees, cafes, theatres, an art gallery - and the blocks around it hold galleries, wine bars and some of the city's better restaurants. Three streets away the same district still has brothel rows and an entrenched street drug market.
After dark
Avdi Square and the restaurant streets stay busy and feel normal. The western and northern fringes towards Kolonos, Iasonos and Leonatou do not, and Greek reporting in January 2026 described residents there living behind bars.
What to watch for
- Named in the Hellenic Police 'second sector' for drug dealing and petty crime (Sept 2026)
- A January 2026 Ta Nea report on gangs and drugs named Iasonos and Leonatou streets in Metaxourgeio specifically, alongside Kolonos and Kerameikos
- Long-documented brothel concentration on and around Kolonou and Iasonos streets
- Travel guides advise avoiding the derelict blocks near Karaiskaki Square after dark
Staying here
Reasonable if you pick the address, not the postcode. Book within two or three blocks of Avdi Square or the metro and it is good value; anything further west and you are walking home through the part the police plan targets.
Reputation against reality. This is the classic case of reputation lagging reality - and of reality lagging the hype. Metaxourgeio was one of the roughest parts of central Athens and is now a real gallery-and-restaurant district; Athens Social Atlas dates the process to renovation buying from the mid-1990s and acceleration after the 2004 Olympics. But unlike, say, Kerameikos, the turnaround is street-by-street rather than district-wide: the good half is genuinely good and the bad half is genuinely bad, and they are 300 metres apart.
Streets and squares: Avdi Square · Iasonos · Leonatou · Kolonou · Keramikou · Myllerou
Other neighbourhoods in Athens
Nearby municipalities
Questions people ask
Is Metaxourgeio safe?
Metaxourgeio (Μεταξουργείο) scores 9 out of 100 for overall safety on SafetyMap — high crime, on a scale where 50 is the Greek average. That is based on the police-recorded offence rate of its regional unit, apportioned by how built-up Metaxourgeio is and by documented local reporting. That works out to about 4,171 property offences and 404 violent offences per 100,000 residents a year.
Is Metaxourgeio safe at night?
Metaxourgeio records more crime than most of Greece, so stay on busy, lit streets late at night, keep phones and bags out of sight, and use licensed taxis rather than walking long distances alone.
How does Metaxourgeio compare with the rest of Athens?
Metaxourgeio scores 9 out of 100 for overall safety, against 25 for Athens as a whole — worse than its surroundings.