VacationSelector

Amsterdam or Antwerp?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Amsterdam
✓ Best match
65
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and nature & day trips with your weighting.

Antwerp
51
match

Wins on value for money and year-round weather with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

The verdict

Choose Amsterdam if you want the larger city: roughly twice the museums, restaurants and bars near the centre, more to walk between, and far more coast and protected countryside within reach for days out.

Choose Antwerp if you want a smaller, quieter base with the same daytime temperatures and a stronger set of day trips by heritage, 9 UNESCO-listed places within reach against Amsterdam's 5.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

AmsterdamAntwerp
Beaches & swimming. Amsterdam leads by 40 points.40
AmsterdamAntwerp
Score400
Swim season months00
Beaches 10 km331
Coast distance24 km21 km
Water distance24 km—
Places to eat. Amsterdam leads by 8 points.8
AmsterdamAntwerp
Score8375
Restaurants within 2 km of centre1,9571,164
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km4442
Museums & heritage. Amsterdam leads by 11 points.11
AmsterdamAntwerp
Score8069
Museums within 10 km9841
Museums within 2 km of centre6927
Share of museums within 2 km %7066
Unesco sites within 50 km59
Nightlife. Amsterdam leads by 11 points.11
AmsterdamAntwerp
Score7059
Drinking venues within 4 km1,543866
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre1,078657
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7076
Nightclubs within 4 km11473
Nature & day trips. Amsterdam leads by 26 points.26
AmsterdamAntwerp
Score6034
Protected land share 50 km %217
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %8280
Park area within 2 km49 hectares53 hectares
Good for families. Amsterdam leads by 22 points.22
AmsterdamAntwerp
Score6846
Tourist attractions within 2 km7414
Park area within 2 km49 hectares53 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km33
Sights concentration. Amsterdam leads by 14 points.14
AmsterdamAntwerp
Score6854
Notable places within 2 km19688
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Antwerp leads by 2 points.2
AmsterdamAntwerp
Score5860
Price level global79.276.2
Daily budget€181€180
Year-round weather. Antwerp leads by 1 points.1
AmsterdamAntwerp
Score5758
Monthly daytime high6.1 °C to 23.1 °C6.5 °C to 23.2 °C
Monthly rainfall42 mm to 85 mm47 mm to 90 mm
Dry months00
0255075100

Where they differ

Amsterdam has the outdoor options: dozens of beaches nearby where Antwerp has almost none, and 21% of the surrounding land protected against 7%. It also has far more tourist attractions near the centre, which matters most if you are travelling with children.

Antwerp is the smaller city, 529,000 people against 921,000, so there is less to walk between; its draw is heritage day trips rather than coast or open land, and it holds the same daytime highs of 6-23°C through the year.

Where they are alike

The weather is effectively the same in both: daytime highs of about 6-23°C across the year, a July peak of 23°C, and no month that drops to 40mm of rain or less, so wet days are possible whenever you go.

They also sit at the same price level on paper, with national daily budget estimates of €181 and €180, and while Amsterdam has more restaurants, the range of kitchens on offer is similar in each.

Which traveller are you?

Families are better served in Amsterdam, which has many times as many tourist attractions near the centre and 33 beaches nearby against Antwerp's 1, though both have 3 theme parks within reach and similar park space.

Anyone travelling for heritage can go either way: Amsterdam holds about twice as many museums, while Antwerp puts 9 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against 5, useful if you plan to move around.

For evenings out, Amsterdam is the clearer choice, with about twice as many bars, twice as many nightclubs and twice as many restaurants near the centre, most of them walkable from the middle in both cities.

What the numbers don't tell you

The daily budget figures are national estimates, the price level for restaurants and hotels across each country, not a measurement of either city. A capital or a heavily visited city can sit well away from its own national average, by more than the gap between these two figures, so nothing here says which trip costs more.

The beach count also flatters Amsterdam. Sand nearby does not mean swimming: the sea peaks at 19°C in August and never reaches 21°C, so the season is short. Antwerp has no sea temperature reading at all, which reflects its position inland rather than a gap in the data.

When should you go?

The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Amsterdam
6
7
11
15
18
21
23
23
20
15
10
7
Antwerp
7
8
11
15
19
21
23
23
20
15
10
7
Sea temperature, °C
Amsterdam
6
5
6
8
12
15
17
19
17
15
11
8
Antwerp
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Amsterdam
71
63
58
42
59
71
85
84
78
81
80
84
Antwerp
77
67
59
47
61
72
80
90
67
71
75
89
Daylight, hours per day
Amsterdam
8
10
12
14
16
17
16
15
13
11
9
8
Antwerp
8
10
12
14
16
17
16
15
13
11
9
8
Sunshine, hours per day
Amsterdam
2
3
5
6
7
7
7
6
5
4
2
2
Antwerp
2
2
4
6
6
7
7
6
5
4
2
1

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Amsterdam: 1991-2020 normals, De Bilt (35.3 km from centre). Antwerp: 1991-2020 normals, Antwerpen / Deurne (5.2 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Amsterdam is at its best from June to August, with highs of 21-23°C and the sea at its warmest, 19°C in August; July and August are also the wettest months there, near 85mm. April is the driest month at 42mm, though highs are only 15°C.

Antwerp follows the same curve, 23°C in July and August, but the late-summer split differs: August is wetter at 90mm, while September is drier than Amsterdam's, 67mm against 78mm. April again is driest at 47mm.

Getting there

Flying fromAmsterdamAntwerp
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 5 m
€93-112
AMS · 12 km
1 h 5 m
€98-165
1 stop
BRU · 36 km
BarcelonaBCN
2 h 10 m
€130-171
AMS · 12 km
1 h 55 m
€47-116
BRU · 36 km
MadridMAD
2 h 25 m
€160-183
AMS · 12 km
2 h 15 m
€98-170
BRU · 36 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
3 h 15 m
€166-175
AMS · 12 km
3 h 10 m
€161-193
BRU · 36 km
DublinDUB
1 h 35 m
€69-96
AMS · 12 km
1 h 35 m
no fares
BRU · 36 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
7 h 35 m
€512-556
1 stop
AMS · 12 km
7 h 35 m
no fares
BRU · 36 km
MilanMXP, BGY, LIN
1 h 35 m
€106-155
AMS · 12 km
1 h 25 m
€36-101
BRU · 36 km
CuracaoCUR
9 h 55 m
no fares
AMS · 12 km
9 h 55 m
no fares
AMS · 123 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
6 h 45 m
€318-346
1 stop
AMS · 12 km
6 h 45 m
no fares
BRU · 36 km
BeijingPEK, PKX
9 h 55 m
no fares
AMS · 12 km
10 h 0 m
no fares
BRU · 36 km

The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-08 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.

Before you go

MeasureAmsterdamAntwerp
Official languageDutchFrench, German, Dutch
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCE230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112 or 911112
Elevation-2 m7 m
Main airportAmsterdam Airport Schiphol (AMS)12 km from centre287 non-stop destinationsBrussels Airport (BRU)36 km from centre191 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureAmsterdamAntwerp
City population921,468529,247
People per km²4,2082,542
Museums within 10 km10138
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km59
Distinct cuisines in the centre9880
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone–

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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). 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. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.