Figures released from Istat show the crime rates across Italy, and reveal a drop in overall reported crime for the first time in four years.

But to assess whether the country has actually got safer, it's important to look at the different types of crime, and the geographical divide.

Milan is – by a long way – the top city when it comes to theft, with around 7,800 complaints per 100,000 residents. It is followed by university city Bologna which counts almost 7,600 per 100,000 residents, and then Florence (6,000) Turin (5,900), Catania (5,600) and Rome (5,200), showing that Northern Italy is much more prone to thefts than the south.

Using the interactive map below, produced by Il Corriere, you can see how safe your hometown is by comparing rates of different crimes.

However, in terms of robberies, the south of the country is much more afflicted. Naples (291 incidents per 100,000 residents) is followed by Catania (261), Milan (251), Turin (231) and Bari (210).  

The three worst cities for sexual assault were Bologna, Florence and Milan. Prostitution-related crimes were also more rife in the north of the country, with Trieste reporting 7,200 crimes of this kind per 100,000 residents, followed by Catania (7,000), Ravenna (5,900), Ancona (5,200) and Alessandria (5,000). Prostitution itself is legal in Italy but brothels and pimping are not. 

Turin reported nearly 1,900 crimes of 'malicious damage' per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Genoa (1,363), Milan (1,353) and Florence (1,101), while no other region reported over 1,000.

But the good news is that violent crime rates have either remained stable or experienced a drop since 2010, particularly murder rates which have seen a steady year-on-year drop apart from 2013. Deaths linked to organized crime have also decreased.

Crimes against property and thefts are on the up, as well as robberies which have increased for the past three years.

The total number of crimes reported went down in 2014, with 4,627 reported per 100,000 residents, compared to 4,801 the previous year.

However, the study only takes into account those crimes which have been brought to the attention of police, so the apparent drop could be down to numerous other factors, including lack of trust in police and fear or embarrassment at reporting crimes – particularly in the case of sexual assault.