VacationSelector
Your rainbow panorama on top of ARoS, Aarhus
AarhusYour rainbow panorama on top of ARoS
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle

Photos: Aarhus by Mozzihh, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Aarhus or Cardiff?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Aarhus for

  • wellness
  • food and drink
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Aarhus’s own page.

Choose Cardiff for

  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Cardiff’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Aarhus 34, Cardiff 30: Aarhus leads by 4 points.
Food & drink. Aarhus 57, Cardiff 45: Aarhus leads by 12 points.
Culture & sights. Aarhus 61, Cardiff 58: Aarhus leads by 3 points.
Nightlife. Aarhus 45, Cardiff 50: Cardiff leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. Aarhus 56, Cardiff 70: Cardiff leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Aarhus 63, Cardiff 72: Cardiff leads by 9 points.
Good for families. Aarhus 70, Cardiff 58: Aarhus leads by 12 points.
Getting around. Aarhus 75, Cardiff 66: Aarhus leads by 9 points.
Shopping & style. Aarhus 47, Cardiff 50: Cardiff leads by 3 points.
Affordability. Aarhus 22, Cardiff 46: Cardiff leads by 24 points.
Live music & performing arts. Aarhus 55, Cardiff 57: Cardiff leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Aarhus 44, Cardiff 27: Aarhus leads by 17 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Aarhus and Cardiff.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Aarhus
52match

Wins on wellness and food and drink with your weighting.

Cardiff
52match

Wins on prices and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Aarhus in July

22 °Cdaytime high
13 °Cnight-time low
66 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
17 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

Cardiff in July

20 °Cdaytime high
13 °Cnight-time low
83 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
17 °Csea
16 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°5°10°15°20°25°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
AarhusCardiff

Where the figures come from

Aarhus's temperatures are measured 30 km from the centre, at Tirstrup.

Aarhus has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Cardiff has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Cardiff's sunshine is measured 83 km from the centre, at Lyneham.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Aarhus: 1991-2020 normals, Tirstrup (29.8 km from centre). Cardiff: 1991-2020 normals, Cardiff-Wales Airport (14.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAarhusCardiff
Official languageDanishEnglish
CurrencyDanish Krone (DKK)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsCEFK230 V, 50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency number112112 or 999
Elevation6 m41 m
Main airportAarhus Airport (AAR)30 km from centre15 non-stop destinationsCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days8 days

By the numbers

MeasureAarhusCardiff
City population290,598383,536
People per km²3,1932,734
Museums within 10 km179
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °CNoneNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Aarhus or Cardiff somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.