VacationSelector

Antwerp or Ghent?

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

Your match

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Antwerp
51
match

Wins on museums & heritage and nightlife with your weighting.

Ghent
50
match

Wins on beaches & swimming 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 Antwerp if the trip is built around museums and galleries, walking from one notable place to the next, and having a wide choice of bars and clubs afterwards.

Choose Ghent if you want more green space near the centre, easier days out with children, and the option of the coast, with 8 beaches within reach against Antwerp's 1.

Scoreboard

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

AntwerpGhent
Beaches & swimming. Ghent leads by 26 points.26
AntwerpGhent
Score026
Swim season months00
Beaches 10 km18
Coast distance21 km32 km
Water distance—32 km
Places to eat. Antwerp leads by 5 points.5
AntwerpGhent
Score7570
Restaurants within 2 km of centre1,164764
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km4249
Museums & heritage. Antwerp leads by 11 points.11
AntwerpGhent
Score6958
Museums within 10 km4124
Museums within 2 km of centre2720
Share of museums within 2 km %6683
Unesco sites within 50 km95
Nightlife. Antwerp leads by 10 points.10
AntwerpGhent
Score5949
Drinking venues within 4 km866570
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre657446
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7678
Nightclubs within 4 km7326
Nature & day trips. Antwerp and Ghent are level on 34.
AntwerpGhent
Score3434
Protected land share 50 km %77
Landscape blanket share 50 km %04
Land share of disc %8087
Park area within 2 km53 hectares84 hectares
Good for families. Ghent leads by 4 points.4
AntwerpGhent
Score4650
Tourist attractions within 2 km1419
Park area within 2 km53 hectares84 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km31
Sights concentration. Antwerp leads by 8 points.8
AntwerpGhent
Score5446
Notable places within 2 km8855
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Antwerp and Ghent are level on 60.
AntwerpGhent
Score6060
Price level global76.276.2
Daily budget€180€180
Year-round weather. Antwerp leads by 2 points.2
AntwerpGhent
Score5856
Monthly daytime high6.5 °C to 23.2 °C6.4 °C to 22 °C
Monthly rainfall47 mm to 90 mm35 mm to 79 mm
Dry months01
0255075100

Where they differ

Antwerp is the stronger city for museums, with more of them and more UNESCO-listed places within day-trip range. Its bar and club scene is much the larger of the two and sits mostly in the centre, and its notable buildings stand closer together, so more of the day is walked than travelled.

Ghent is the one with access to water: 8 beaches nearby against Antwerp's 1, though neither sees a month of sea above 21°C. Park space near the centre is about double Antwerp's.

Where they are alike

Neither city is a base for wild country: 7% of the land around each is protected, and the day-trip range looks much the same from either.

The weather is close too, with January highs of 6-7°C and summers topping out at 22-23°C, so packing for one is packing for the other. Eating out is a strength in both cases, Antwerp with more restaurants near the centre, Ghent with more variety in what is cooked.

Which traveller are you?

For a culture-led long weekend, Antwerp: about twice as many museums as Ghent and 9 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against 5, with the notable sights packed tightly enough to walk between them.

For a family trip, Ghent has more attractions near the centre and about twice as much park space, though Antwerp counters with 3 theme parks within reach against Ghent's 1.

For evenings out, Antwerp: roughly twice the places to drink and three times the nightclubs, most of them central. Ghent has fewer, but a wider range of kitchens for the meal beforehand.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison between these two carries no information. It reflects a national price level, identical for both by construction, and the €180 daily budget beside it is one national estimate rather than a measurement of either city. Neither is the cheaper trip on this evidence.

Ghent's beach advantage is thinner than it looks: the sea never reaches 21°C in any month, and its warmest point falls in August, which is also among the wettest months in both cities. That holds more generally, the warmest weeks are the rainiest, so a high-summer trip should assume some indoor days.

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
Antwerp
7
8
11
15
19
21
23
23
20
15
10
7
Ghent
6
7
10
13
17
20
22
22
19
15
10
7
Sea temperature, °C
Antwerp
No coastline within reach
Ghent
6
6
6
9
12
16
18
19
18
15
11
8
Rainfall, mm
Antwerp
77
67
59
47
61
72
80
90
67
71
75
89
Ghent
59
52
44
35
51
64
74
79
72
76
78
74
Daylight, hours per day
Antwerp
8
10
12
14
16
17
16
15
13
11
9
8
Ghent
9
10
12
14
16
17
16
15
13
11
9
8
Sunshine, hours per day
Antwerp
2
2
4
6
6
7
7
6
5
4
2
1
Ghent
3
3
5
7
8
8
8
7
6
4
3
2

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Antwerp: 1991-2020 normals, Antwerpen / Deurne (5.2 km from centre). Ghent: 1991-2020 normals, Vlissingen (44.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Antwerp is the warmer pick in high summer, 23°C in July and August where Ghent reaches 22°C, though those are also Antwerp's wettest months, at 80-90mm.

Ghent is the drier choice in spring: April brings 35mm, the lightest rainfall either city sees all year, on highs of 13°C, and its sea reaches 19°C at best. Autumn runs the other way, with October and November wetter in Ghent than in Antwerp.

Getting there

Flying fromAntwerpGhent
MadridMAD
2 h 15 m
€98-170
BRU · 36 km
2 h 15 m
€98-170
BRU · 56 km
BarcelonaBCN
1 h 55 m
€47-116
BRU · 36 km
1 h 55 m
€47-116
BRU · 56 km
RomeFCO, CIA
2 h 5 m
€87-136
1 stop
BRU · 36 km
2 h 5 m
€87-136
1 stop
BRU · 56 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
3 h 10 m
€161-193
BRU · 36 km
3 h 10 m
€161-193
BRU · 56 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 5 m
€98-165
1 stop
BRU · 36 km
1 h 5 m
€98-165
1 stop
BRU · 56 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
7 h 35 m
no fares
BRU · 36 km
7 h 35 m
no fares
BRU · 56 km
GenevaGVA
1 h 20 m
no fares
BRU · 36 km
1 h 20 m
no fares
BRU · 56 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
6 h 45 m
no fares
BRU · 36 km
6 h 45 m
no fares
BRU · 56 km
BeijingPEK, PKX
10 h 0 m
no fares
BRU · 36 km
10 h 0 m
no fares
BRU · 56 km
Sao PauloGRU, VCP, CGH, RTE
12 h 10 m
no fares
AMS · 123 km
12 h 0 m
no fares
BRU · 56 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

MeasureAntwerpGhent
Official languageFrench, German, DutchFrench, German, Dutch
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzCE230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation7 m12 m
Main airportBrussels Airport (BRU)36 km from centre191 non-stop destinationsBrussels Airport (BRU)56 km from centre191 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureAntwerpGhent
City population529,247272,657
People per km²2,5421,728
Museums within 10 km3830
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km95
Distinct cuisines in the centre8083
Swim season, months above 21 °C–None

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Antwerp or Ghent 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. 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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 2026-09-01. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.