VacationSelector

Amsterdam or Cologne?

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 museums & heritage with your weighting.

Cologne
57
match

Wins on nature & day trips and good for families 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 the trip is built around museums and walking: the deeper collection, held tightly around the centre, alongside the wider choice of restaurants and a coast within reach for a cool swim.

Choose Cologne if you want green space, parks and day trips into protected countryside, with room for children, six theme parks within reach and warmer summer afternoons at 25°C.

Scoreboard

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

AmsterdamCologne
Beaches & swimming. Amsterdam leads by 40 points.40
AmsterdamCologne
Score400
Swim season months00
Beaches 10 km3340
Coast distance24 km256 km
Water distance24 km—
Places to eat. Amsterdam leads by 11 points.11
AmsterdamCologne
Score8372
Restaurants within 2 km of centre1,9571,142
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km4435
Museums & heritage. Amsterdam leads by 20 points.20
AmsterdamCologne
Score8060
Museums within 10 km9847
Museums within 2 km of centre6927
Share of museums within 2 km %7057
Unesco sites within 50 km53
Nightlife. Amsterdam leads by 6 points.6
AmsterdamCologne
Score7064
Drinking venues within 4 km1,5431,107
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre1,078727
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7066
Nightclubs within 4 km11490
Nature & day trips. Cologne leads by 11 points.11
AmsterdamCologne
Score6071
Protected land share 50 km %2153
Landscape blanket share 50 km %052
Land share of disc %82100
Park area within 2 km49 hectares118 hectares
Good for families. Cologne leads by 4 points.4
AmsterdamCologne
Score6872
Tourist attractions within 2 km7443
Park area within 2 km49 hectares118 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km36
Sights concentration. Amsterdam leads by 15 points.15
AmsterdamCologne
Score6853
Notable places within 2 km19681
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Cologne leads by 2 points.2
AmsterdamCologne
Score5860
Price level global79.275.9
Daily budget€181€163
Year-round weather. Cologne leads by 3 points.3
AmsterdamCologne
Score5760
Monthly daytime high6.1 °C to 23.1 °C6.3 °C to 25 °C
Monthly rainfall42 mm to 85 mm48 mm to 81 mm
Dry months00
0255075100

Where they differ

Amsterdam packs more into a walkable centre: about twice as many notable places within walking distance as Cologne, about twice as many museums, and about twice as many restaurants nearby with a wider range of kitchens. It also has the sea within reach, though the water peaks at 19°C in August.

Cologne's setting is the greener one: 53% of the surrounding land is protected against 21% around Amsterdam, with about twice as much park space near the centre and six theme parks within reach against Amsterdam's three.

Where they are alike

Value is where they sit closest. The national estimates behind them are €181 for the Netherlands and €163 for Germany, close enough that neither country's price level decides the trip on its own.

Weather, families and nights out are close too: both start January at 6°C and peak in July, both pair attractions near the centre with park space for children, and in both, most bars and clubs sit near the centre.

Which traveller are you?

A museum-led weekend: Amsterdam. About twice as many museums as Cologne, held close to the centre alongside the greater density of notable places, so several can be strung together on foot in a day.

Family with children: Cologne. Six theme parks within reach against Amsterdam's three, about twice as much park space near the centre, and more surrounding protected land for a day out of the city.

Eating and nights out: Amsterdam. About twice as many restaurants near the centre and a wider range of kitchens, with somewhat more bars and clubs, most of them close enough to walk between.

What the numbers don't tell you

The daily budget figures are national estimates for the Netherlands and Germany, price levels for restaurants and hotels rather than measurements of Amsterdam or Cologne. A capital or a heavily visited city can sit further from its own country's average than the two countries sit from each other, so the gap says nothing about what either city will cost you.

The warmest months are also the wettest: Amsterdam's July and August carry its heaviest rain and Cologne's are close behind, while the driest spring weeks come with cooler afternoons. Amsterdam has beaches, but the sea never passes 19°C, so swimming stays a cold-water business.

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
Cologne
6
7
12
16
20
23
25
25
21
15
10
7
Sea temperature, °C
Amsterdam
6
5
6
8
12
15
17
19
17
15
11
8
Cologne
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Amsterdam
71
63
58
42
59
71
85
84
78
81
80
84
Cologne
64
56
53
48
60
76
81
81
67
65
68
72
Daylight, hours per day
Amsterdam
8
10
12
14
16
17
16
15
13
11
9
8
Cologne
9
10
12
14
16
16
16
15
13
11
9
8
Sunshine, hours per day
Amsterdam
2
3
5
6
7
7
7
6
5
4
2
2
Cologne
2
2
4
6
7
7
7
6
5
3
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). Cologne: 1991-2020 normals, Köln-Stammheim (5.4 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Amsterdam is at its best in July and August, when highs reach 23°C and the sea is warmest at 19°C; both months are also its wettest, near 85mm. April is the driest at 42mm, good for the museums if not for swimming.

Cologne is the warmer bet from May to September, with highs of 20-25°C and rain easing to 67mm in September against Amsterdam's 78mm. October and November stay drier there too, which helps a late autumn city break.

Getting there

Flying fromAmsterdamCologne
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 5 m
€93-112
AMS · 12 km
1 h 20 m
no fares
CGN · 15 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
3 h 15 m
€166-175
AMS · 12 km
3 h 0 m
€145-156
CGN · 15 km
AntalyaAYT
3 h 45 m
no fares
AMS · 12 km
3 h 30 m
€204-239
1 stop
CGN · 15 km
PalmaPMI
2 h 20 m
no fares
AMS · 12 km
2 h 10 m
no fares
CGN · 15 km
MunichMUC
1 h 25 m
€203-231
AMS · 12 km
1 h 10 m
no fares
CGN · 15 km
BarcelonaBCN
2 h 10 m
€130-171
AMS · 12 km
2 h 0 m
€77-159
CGN · 15 km
ViennaVIE
1 h 50 m
€209-257
AMS · 12 km
1 h 35 m
€126-182
CGN · 15 km
MilanMXP, BGY, LIN
1 h 35 m
€106-155
AMS · 12 km
1 h 20 m
€81-121
CGN · 15 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
6 h 45 m
€318-346
1 stop
AMS · 12 km
6 h 35 m
no fares
DUS · 41 km
CuracaoCUR
9 h 55 m
no fares
AMS · 12 km
10 h 0 m
no fares
DUS · 41 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

MeasureAmsterdamCologne
Official languageDutchGerman
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112 or 911112
Elevation-2 m59 m
Main airportAmsterdam Airport Schiphol (AMS)12 km from centre287 non-stop destinationsCologne Bonn Airport (CGN)15 km from centre113 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureAmsterdamCologne
City population921,4681,024,621
People per km²4,2082,530
Museums within 10 km10140
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km53
Distinct cuisines in the centre9884
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 Cologne 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.