Virginia Beach is once again one of the safest cities in the country, according to a new report by personal finance website WalletHub.

To find the safest places in the US they compared 182 cities using 42 safety indicators grouped into three categories: home & community safety, natural disaster risk, and financial safety. The heaviest-weighted factors were COVID-19 vaccination rates, presence of terror attacks, murder & non-negligent manslaughter rates, and unemployment rate.

Virginia Beach is the 18th-safest city in the country this year, according to the writers. While it’s in the top ten percent, in previous years we have been ranked significantly higher on lists created by Wallethub, MoneyGeek, and Advisorsmith. Virginia Beach was even called the safest big city in the country in 2018 and 2021, by Advisorsmith and MoneyGeek, respectively. This year the city’s best scores were in the the category of home & community safety, where we had the 20th-best score overall.

The safest city in the country for 2022 was Columbia, MD, with the top score in the home & community safety category. The only other Virginia city in the top fifty was Chesapeake, at position 33.