What are the World's Most Heavily Surveilled Cities?
The cities with the most surveillance cameras in the word per capita are all in China, except for London and Atlanta, Ga.
Researchers from Comparitech studied the number of security video cameras in use in 120 major cities around the world and compared those numbers to the population of each city.
Chongqing had the highest rate of security video cameras, the report said, with about 168 for every 1,000 people. Shanghai had the overall most cameras, with more than 2.9 million, but its higher population meant it had only 113 cameras per 1,000 people.
China reportedly has about 200 million CCTV cameras. But by 2022, the country is projected to have 626 million cameras, one camera for every two people based on its current population, according to the study.
Based on the number of cameras per 1,000 people, these cities are the top 20 most surveilled in the world:
- Chongqing, China – 2,579,890 cameras for 15,354,067 people = 168.03 cameras per 1,000 people
- Shenzhen, China – 1,929,600 cameras for 12,128,721 people = 159.09 cameras per 1,000 people
- Shanghai, China – 2,985,984 cameras for 26,317,104 people = 113.46 cameras per 1,000 people
- Tianjin, China – 1,244,160 cameras for 13,396,402 people = 92.87 cameras per 1,000 people
- Ji’nan, China – 540,463 cameras for 7,321,200 people = 73.82 cameras per 1,000 people
- London, England (UK) – 627,707 cameras for 9,176,530 people = 68.40 cameras per 1,000 people
- Wuhan, China – 500,000 cameras for 8,266,273 people = 60.49 cameras per 1,000 people
- Guangzhou, China – 684,000 cameras for 12,967,862 people = 52.75 cameras per 1,000 people
- Beijing, China – 800,000 cameras for 20,035,455 people = 39.93 cameras per 1,000 people
- Atlanta, Ga. (US) – 7,800 cameras for 501,178 people = 15.56 cameras per 1,000 people
- Singapore – 86,000 cameras for 5,638,676 people = 15.25 cameras per 1,000 people
- Abu Dhabi, UAE – 20,000 cameras for 1,452,057 people = 13.77 cameras per 1,000 people
- Chicago, Ill. (US) – 35,000 cameras for 2,679,044 people = 13.06 cameras per 1,000 people
- Urumqi, China – 43,394 cameras for 3,500,000 people = 12.40 cameras per 1,000 people
- Sydney, Australia – 60,000 cameras for 4,859,432 people = 12.35 cameras per 1,000 people
- Baghdad, Iraq – 120,000 cameras for 9,760,000 people = 12.30 cameras per 1,000 people
- Dubai, UAE – 35,000 cameras for 2,883,079 people = 12.14 cameras per 1,000 people
- Moscow, Russia – 146,000 cameras for 12,476,171 people = 11.70 cameras per 1,000 people
- Berlin, Germany – 39,765 cameras for 3,556,792 people = 11.18 cameras per 1,000 people
- New Delhi, India – 179,000 cameras for 18,600,000 people = 9.62 cameras per 1,000 people
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