According to the report covered in the article (in Spanish) the safest cities in order are:
Pamplona, Oviedo, Santander, Gijón, Logroño, Vitoria, Albacete, Valladolid, A Coruña and Bilbao

The least safe cities? Well Barcelona and its two new neighbours Badalona and Hospitalet de Llobregat make up the top three, followed by Cartagena, Sevilla, Málaga, Madrid, Palma de Mallorca, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Alicante

http://www.abc.es/20120816/sociedad/...208161230.html

I lived 12 km outside Sevilla for 8 years and visited the city on many occasions alone and with family/ friends and local spanish residents of the city. Judging by what I read on forums I must have STAY AWAY tattooed front and back as I never once felt unsafe nor had anything stolen. Mind you I am a canny person who has travelled alone for many years and is some what streetwise.

Here's another vote for Oviedo!

It has won awards for being the safest and cleanest city in Europe never mind Spain

Woody Allen famously said that the city was like "living in a fairy tail". The tourist office year use that quote again and again...

I didn't know fairies had tails!

Me too, I lived in the centre for 2 years and always felt perfectly safe going out at night on my own, even at 3 a.m. the streets are full of people.

Interesting that all except Albacete are in the north of Spain.
Could be because there are fewer foreign tourists, making it less attractive to steal,mug etc.

Partly, less foreign tourists means a less transient society

Transient societies i.e. those that dont have connections and move on always have high levels of crime

i.e. people rob tourists and foreigners because they are less connected so less likely to report them, not because they have more stuff

We have to say that those doing the robbing also tend to be transient people e.g. they did a survey of those who were caught robbing on the Madrid underground and found that over 90% were Romanian

Half of all people in prisons in Spain are foreign. Made me laugh when I saw the British media complaining this week that 20% of people in Britain's prisons were foreign!

When my wife was a kid there were only 2 homesless people in Oviedo, they were well known to everyone - and are still here. Now there are probably 20 or so who are visible. The new ones are all foreign

Could also because it rains a lot! Bad weather deters criminal activities.

I think its just because there are more big cities in the north and they only sampled 30, based on population size. The only ones surveyed from Andalucia were Malaga and Sevilla I think.

Indeed it does, we used to call it PC Rain and some nights pray for him/it

I find it hard to believe that Las Palmas is regarded as an unsafe city. I have lived here for years and there is very little crime.

Guess we're all different, it's the only place in Spain I have ever been a victim of crime, car broken into twice in a week. Every car in the street was done, most with windows smashed. Someone else we know, a Spanish military guy, had his baby in the back seat and they put a brick through the rear window to steal his wife's bag, whilst they were stuck in traffic. Seville is no different to any other city, crime happens unfortunately.

then you don't know many fairies, sweety

that is the rub for such cities as there are Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics.

I'm not saying it is crime ridden, but if Granada which is slightly smaller than Seville had worse crime then it wouldnt be included because of the size of conurbation being polled.

you can prove anything by statistics and people will believe what they want from them solely dependent on whether they are a Half Empty or Half Full type of person.

as others have said, it depends if when there you "feel safe", that will make you less jumpy and looking for trouble.
sensible precautions no matter if in the city or in the village should ensure you keep what is yours.

Yes certainly works