Athens, Thessaloniki and Patras: how Greece's largest cities compare

By the SafetyMap team · Updated September 26, 2026

Greece's two metropolitan regions have the highest property crime in the country — but not in the order most people expect. Per resident, Thessaloniki records more property crime and twice as many burglaries as Attica; Attica records more robbery and assault.

The five largest urban regions side by side

Region	Burglary	Theft	Vehicle theft	Assault	Robbery	Homicide
Thessaloniki	333	1,047	209	76	35	0.9
Attica	165	1,076	288	89	55	0.9
Achaea	81	412	112	87	11	0.5
Heraklion	51	257	111	66	2	0.6
Larissa	40	156	52	51	4	0.7

Offences per 100,000 residents a year, 2021–2024

Attica and Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki records about 1,379 property offences per 100,000 residents a year against Attica's 1,241, and 333 burglaries against 165. Attica is ahead on violent crime: 145 offences per 100,000 against Thessaloniki's 112, with robbery at 55 against 35. Both are far above the rest of Greece on theft.

Patras, Heraklion and Larissa

Achaea, the regional unit of Patras, records 493 property and 98 violent offences per 100,000 residents a year — below the two metropolitan regions on property crime, close to the Greek level of 101 on violent crime. Heraklion (308 and 69) and Larissa (195 and 55) are lower still.

Neighbourhood by neighbourhood

A regional rate cannot say which streets the figures come from. For the three largest cities, SafetyMap's written neighbourhood notes do: 63 for Athens, 72 for Patras and 23 for the municipality of Thessaloniki, each with its sources, saying what changes after dark and what specifically goes wrong. Of the 63 in Athens, one is somewhere we would not book a room, 20 are fine by day with care after dark, 27 need only ordinary city precautions and 15 are good places to stay.

Sources

Figures are offences recorded by the Hellenic Police per 100,000 residents a year, averaged over 2021–2024 (Eurostat, crim_gen_reg). The tables are computed from the same data as the map.