53 Cantons in Ecuador Had Zero Murders in 2025 — And Most of Them Are Near You

If your family back home sends you worried news links about Ecuador every other week, this is the article to send back.

Yes, Ecuador has a serious violence problem — but it's concentrated in very specific places, and Cuenca isn't one of them. A recent analysis of 2025 homicide data reveals that 53 cantons across Ecuador recorded zero murders for the entire year. And the pattern isn't random: geography and culture are the two biggest predictors of whether a place is safe or dangerous.

Where the Violence Is (and Isn't)

Ecuador's violence is overwhelmingly coastal. Port cities like Guayaquil, Manta, Esmeraldas, and Durán account for a massively disproportionate share of the country's homicides. These are transit points for the international drug trade — positioned between Colombia and Peru, Ecuador's coast has become a battleground for trafficking groups fighting over shipping routes.

The murder rate in Guayaquil hovered around 50 per 100,000 in recent years. Manta closed 2025 with a record-breaking 500 homicides in its district alone.

Now compare that to the Sierra.

Cuenca's Numbers Tell a Different Story

Cuenca's murder rate: 3.5 per 100,000 population. That's lower than most comparably sized U.S. cities.

The number of homicides in the Cuenca canton dropped from 33 in 2022 to 20 in 2023, and the trend has continued downward. All of Azuay Province recorded just 50 homicides in 2023 — and nearly 60% of those were concentrated in a single canton: Camilo Ponce Enríquez, a gold-mining town on the Guayas Province border that has little in common with life in central Cuenca.

Of the nine crime categories tracked by authorities, seven showed reductions in both Cuenca and Azuay Province.

The 25 Cantons That Haven't Had a Murder in 14 Years

The safety story goes even deeper. According to data compiled by The Cuenca Dispatch, 25 cantons across 11 provinces haven't recorded a single violent death since at least 2010 — that's 14 years running.

The province with the most murder-free cantons? Azuay — your province. Six of its 15 cantons have had zero violent deaths in that period. These are small, mostly indigenous and agricultural communities like:

• Chordeleg (pop. ~12,200) — known internationally for its jewelry and crafts, and popular as a day trip from Cuenca
• Nabón — a quiet agricultural canton south of Cuenca
• Several small highland communities in Chimborazo (like Chunchi and Penipe), predominantly indigenous populations dedicated to farming

The pattern is consistent: small highland cantons with strong community ties, agricultural economies, and indigenous cultural traditions tend to have virtually no violent crime.

Why Geography and Culture Matter

Criminologists point to several factors:

• No drug transit routes. The Sierra highlands aren't useful for moving cocaine to ports. The violence follows the supply chain, and the supply chain follows the coast.
• Community social control. In smaller indigenous and mestizo highland communities, social bonds are tight. People know each other. That informal accountability is a powerful crime deterrent.
• Economic structure. Agriculture and artisanal crafts don't generate the kind of wealth disputes or territorial battles that illegal mining and drug trafficking do.
• The Camilo Ponce Enríquez exception proves the rule. The one violent canton in Azuay is an illegal gold mining center — a completely different economic and social environment from Cuenca proper.

What This Means for You

None of this means you should be careless. Petty theft, motorcycle theft, and opportunistic crime are real in Cuenca — seven of nine crime categories improved, but motorcycle thefts ticked up. Standard street smarts apply.

But the safety picture for Cuenca and the surrounding Sierra is dramatically different from what the international headlines suggest. When you see "Ecuador" in a scary news story, check the location. It's almost always the coast.

Cuenca's combination of highland geography, strong cultural identity, and distance from trafficking routes makes it one of the safest urban areas in Ecuador — and the data consistently backs that up.

Next time someone says "isn't Ecuador dangerous?" you've got your answer: it depends entirely on where you are.

Sources: CuencaHighLife, The Cuenca Dispatch, Macrotrends