STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) -- The State College region has been ranked by a research firm as the safest of Pennsylvania's 14 metropolitan areas and the ninth safest of 281 such regions nationwide.

Morgan Quitno Press of Lawrence, Kan., based the rankings on FBI crime data for 2002 in six basic crime categories: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and auto theft. Regions with populations of 75,000 or more were included in the rankings.

The ranking -- placing the State College area between No. 8 Eau Claire, Wis., and No. 10 Bismarck, N.D. -- is no surprise, State College police Sgt. John Wilson said.

"It does not surprise me that we'd be ranked as a very safe place to live," Wilson said Friday. "Our levels of violent crimes have always been very low. We do, on the other hand, have a lot of nuisance crimes, but generally, this is a very safe area to live."

The Bangor, Maine, metropolitan area was ranked safest, and the two Connecticut areas of Danbury and Stamford-Norwalk were the only other two eastern metropolitan areas that came in ahead of the State College area.

Two other regions in Pennsylvania -- the Sharon and Williamsport metropolitan areas -- came in 18th and 20th safest, respectively. ("Sharon" includes all of Mercer County.) None of the other 11 metropolitan regions in Pennsylvania made either the safest 25 or the most dangerous 25 lists.