District safety · Seattle · data through August 2026

How safe is Downtown Seattle?

Downtown Seattle covers 8 neighborhoods in SafeRoute's Seattle index. Its median safety index is 10/100 — below the citywide median of 54, so more is reported around a typical neighborhood here than across Seattle. Pioneer Square scores highest at 13/100; Denny Triangle lowest at 8/100.

These figures describe reported crime around each neighborhood's center — they are informational, not a judgment of any community. 0 of 8 neighborhoods here rate low risk, 0 moderate, 0 elevated and 8 high risk.

Every neighborhood in Downtown, safest first

Neighborhood	Index	Band	Incidents
1 Pioneer Square	13/100	High risk	2,362
2 Belltown	11/100	High risk	3,086
3 International District	11/100	High risk	3,095
4 Pike-Market	10/100	High risk	3,326
5 First Hill	9/100	High risk	3,852
6 Yesler Terrace	9/100	High risk	3,611
7 Central Business District	8/100	High risk	4,233
8 Denny Triangle	8/100	High risk	4,431

How Downtown compares across Seattle

Districts (safest first)	Median index	Neighborhoods
Magnolia	78/100	3
Beacon Hill	73/100	4
Greater Duwamish	72/100	5
West Seattle	71/100	8
Northeast	68/100	8
Lake City	63/100	5
Northgate	62/100	4
Delridge	61/100	6
Northwest	58/100	5
North Central	56/100	4
Capitol Hill	54/100	5
Ballard	49/100	5
Central Area	49/100	6
Queen Anne	46/100	4
Rainier Valley	45/100	6
Cascade	41/100	3
University District	22/100	3
Downtown (this page)	10/100	8

Common questions

What is the safest neighborhood in Downtown Seattle?

Pioneer Square has the highest SafeRoute safety index in Downtown Seattle, at 13/100 (high risk), from 2,362 reported incidents within 1 km of its center. Belltown (11/100) and International District (11/100) follow.

Which neighborhood in Downtown Seattle has the most reported crime?

Denny Triangle has the lowest index in Downtown Seattle, at 8/100, with 4,431 reported incidents within 1 km of its center. A low score means more is reported around that center, which busy commercial and transport areas produce simply by having more people in them — it is not a measure of how dangerous a resident's street is.

Is Downtown Seattle safe?

Across its 8 neighborhoods the median SafeRoute safety index is 10/100, against 54 across Seattle. 0 rate low risk, 0 moderate, 0 elevated and 8 high risk. These describe reported crime only and vary widely within the district — check the individual neighborhood rather than reading one number for the whole of it.

How is the SafeRoute safety index calculated?

SafeRoute weights each incident reported to the Seattle Police Department by severity (violence weighs more than shoplifting), sums the last available period within 1 km of the neighborhood center, and normalizes against citywide crime rates onto a 0–100 scale — higher is safer. It describes reported crime only; it is not a guarantee of safety. The figure shown for Downtown Seattle is the median of its 8 neighborhoods — the district is not measured separately.

Methodology

Each incident reported to the Seattle Police Department (via Seattle Open Data) is weighted by severity — violence counts for more than shoplifting. For every neighborhood we sum weighted incidents within 1 km of its center, and normalize against citywide crime rates onto a 0–100 index, higher = safer. Boundaries are the Seattle City GIS Neighborhood Map Atlas — 94 neighborhoods grouped into 20 districts (so Capitol Hill and West Seattle, which are districts, appear as section headings). Because Seattle's dense downtown far outweighs its residential neighborhoods, the index is calibrated to the citywide median so a typical neighborhood reads mid-scale. Time-of-day charts use SPD incident timestamps, severity-weighted. Pages regenerate as new data is published.

The index compares neighborhoods within Seattle. It is not comparable between cities: each police force publishes a different set of offences over a different period — Seattle's figures cannot be read against another city's on the same 0–100 scale.