Watch Out: These Are the Real Most Dangerous Cities in CA

California is an interesting state with many cities that are considered to be glamorous by the rest of the world and other cities that are considered to be less desirable.

It’s easy to look at California in two ways: the Disneyland and Hollywood version where everything is happy and beautiful or the Criminal Activity version where life is hard and extremely dangerous.

Where are the Most Dangerous Cities in California?

There are various opinions and statistics online about which cities are the most dangerous in California. We went through lists that used local and FBI crime data, location, family history, and size of the city to make a current list of the 9 most dangerous cities in the Golden State.

There were a few cities that showed up on every list including Emeryville, Oakland, and Vallejo but after that, the lists varied on which cities were most dangerous. We used lists from 4 sources and based on how many times each city appeared on the lists ranked them in the following order. Some cities are a surprise, like Compton and Modesto, in that they didn’t appear on all 4 lists.

The Most Dangerous Cities in California

Compiled from 4 separate sources, these are the 9 cities mentioned the most often as the Most Dangerous in the Golden State.

Gallery Credit: Credit N8

What Makes a City in CA Dangerous

To find out which cities are the most dangerous in California, the sites we looked at used crime data based on Violent Crime, Property Crime, Aggravated Assault, Homicide, Robbery, and Vehicle Theft. Our sources were Safe and Sound Security, Property Club, Roadsnacks, and Spolin Law. You can see their rankings at their website links.

While not #1 on our list, Emeryville was listed as the most dangerous on 2 websites. Oakland was in the top 3 on all sites, and Vallejo (while near the bottom of all other lists) was the only other city to make all of them which is why it ranked so high on our list.

Surprisingly, not all the cities on the list of most dangerous made the list of worst places to live in California. Proving that while crime is a huge factor, location and opportunity also play key roles in the appeal of an area. San Bernardino is the only city to make the list of Worst Cities and the Most Dangerous.