Safest counties for violent crime rate in California

Top 25 of 58 counties with data.

Ranked by violent crime rate (FBI Crime Data Explorer (per-agency, 2018-2022 average), FBI CDE 2020-2024 avg), lowest first.

Safest counties for violent crime rate in California
Rank	County	Value
1	Placer	176.6 per 100k
2	Marin	199.1 per 100k
3	Ventura	200.5 per 100k
4	Yolo	219.2 per 100k
5	Imperial	223.4 per 100k
6	Sierra	223.9 per 100k
7	San Mateo	227.8 per 100k
8	Orange	235.4 per 100k
9	El Dorado	238.7 per 100k
10	Mendocino	249.4 per 100k
11	Riverside	253.4 per 100k
12	Amador	254.7 per 100k
13	Napa	265.8 per 100k
14	Sonoma	269.5 per 100k
15	Colusa	271.9 per 100k
16	Mono	291.8 per 100k
17	Nevada	307.7 per 100k
18	Calaveras	308.0 per 100k
19	Sutter	316.1 per 100k
20	Santa Cruz	319.6 per 100k
21	Santa Clara	321.6 per 100k
22	San Luis Obispo	323.4 per 100k
23	San Benito	324.2 per 100k
24	Shasta	328.4 per 100k
25	Contra Costa	341.8 per 100k

How this ranking works

This page ranks California counties by violent crime rate, sorted so the safest places appear first. Click any county to see its housing, schools, crime, and demographics in detail.

For violent crime rate, a lower value is generally more favorable, so the top of the list is the lowest. Want to weigh violent crime rate against schools, taxes, commute, and more at once? Use the live map to build a custom match.

Data comes from public sources. Source attribution and the exact data vintage are shown above and on the full map of violent crime rate.

Safest Counties (Lowest Violent Crime) in California (2026)

Safest counties for violent crime rate in California

How this ranking works

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